The music is performed on the CD by the London Piano Quartet, formed in 2000 by Norma Liddell, Elizabeth Turnbull, David Kennedy and Philip Fowke, all distinguished performers in their own fields. The Quartet has quickly made a name for itself through the players' relaxed style and informative presentation. It has premièred and recorded works by other British composers in addition to a concert repertoire of piano quartets by many major composers.

The CD is accompanied by an excellent, very informative sleeve-note by Timothy Bowers, who studied composition with Bush at the Royal Academy of Music and is now himself a well-known composer and professor at the RAM. The Trust owe him another debt of gratitude in that Dr. Bowers prepared the manuscript edition of the Sonata for Cello and Pianoforte, used by the artists on this CD.

In June 2003 the first award of the prize was made to Sergey Rybin. Born in Siberia, Sergey studied at the Moscow State University of Culture and Arts, later joining the staff as a Professor of Piano. He began his studies on the RAM Piano Accompaniment Course in September 2002 where his professors are Malcolm Martineau and Colin Stone. Since then, Sergey has given various public performances at London venues as well as concerts at the RAM. He has been the recipient of a number of other RAM prizes.

Douglas Bostock

The Royal Northern College of Music Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Douglas Bostock who is internationally renowned, will also perform Bush's Nottingham Symphony at a concert at the Royal Northern College in Manchester on Friday 6th February 2004. We hope that as many lovers of Bush's music as possible will attend this concert!

The CD will be issued on the Danish Classico label as part of their long-running "British Symphonic Collection". The recording company under the guidance of Douglas Bostock and their repertoire consultant, Lewis Foreman, have taken a particular interest in recording British music of the 20th century.

This will be a wonderful opportunity to further public awareness of Bush's symphonic works, following on from the great critical success enjoyed by the CDs of his music issued during 2002 - with more CDs to come this year and in 2004.

Those who send a donation of at least £15 will automatically receive a copy of the CD upon its release in 2004.

Nicholas Ward

The Northern Chamber Orchestra, led by its Artistic Director Nicholas Ward, will perform Alan Bush's English Suite for String Orchestra in Manchester on 26th November, in a programme of music for strings spanning 200 years. Formed in 1967, the NCO has a formidable reputation throughout the North West of England. Playing without a conductor, the ensemble members are all distinguished musicians who play as principals with other orchestras and regularly appear as soloists.

In 1994 the NCO recorded Bush's English Suite - one of his more important works - on a CD for Redcliffe Recordings, Music by Alan Bush. You can listen to the Passacaglia movement on the Listen section of the website.

In her programme note, Barbara Kley described the piece as opening "with an arresting introduction on woodwind, brass and drums followed by a statement of the theme, a bold whaling song, on the piano. The theme is very short - a mere sixteen bars - and there follow thirteen variations, all equally short. The Nocturne, which follows without a break, is in ternary form. In the meditative opening and closing sections the composer has tried to evoke the nostalgia of a long voyage, while the central section is much busier with scurrying phrases in the orchestra punctuated by side drum and cymbal. The Finale seems to grow out of the Nocturne's middle section and its main theme is derived from the theme of the Variations. In this work, the composer, in addition to glorifying the piano, has paid tribute to man's courage and intelligence in the struggle to understand and control nature".

The piano part is very demanding, but Mark Bebbington, a very accomplished pianist, gave a virtuoso performance and he also entered into the spirit of the music very much in the way Alan Bush would have approved. The orchestra, conducted very ably by Rupert Bond, provided the support required by the soloist and played with great enthusiasm and panache. The work was well received by the audience, and Mark Bebbington, in particular, was deservedly applauded for his excellent performance of the solo part.

This work has not been performed for many years and never before in London. The first performance was given at the Cheltenham Festival in 1965. David Wilde (piano) and the BBC Northern & Midland Light Orchestra, conducted by Meredith Davies, performed it at a Cheltenham Festival Concert on 7 July 1965. It was then issued the following year as a LP on the Pye Golden Guinea Label, with David Wilde (piano), and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by John Snashall. It was later broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in a Morning Concert, again with David Wilde (piano) and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by John Snashall on 22 December 1975. There was a further broadcast of the work in 1982.

It is to be hoped that the welcome revival of this work will lead to other performances both in London and elsewhere. However, the James Allen Community Orchestra, their conductor, Rupert Bond and Mark Bebbington are to be congratulated for providing us with the opportunity of hearing this most enjoyable work by Alan Bush again.

The Concert - "For those in peril on the sea" - is in aid of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) and all the works share a sea theme. Rebecca de Pont Davies (mezzo soprano) will also feature in the programme.

The other works to be performed are:
Wagner - Overture: The Flying Dutchman
Mendelssohn - Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Op. 27
Elgar - Sea Pictures Op. 37
Britten - Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes Op. 33a
Arnold Padstow - Lifeboat Op. 94

The venue:
St John's
Smith's Square
London
SW1P 3HA
Nearest tube stations: Westminster and St James Park

Box office: Tel 020 7222 1061 (Monday to Friday 10 to 5)
Tickets £15, £12 and £9 (Concessions £6)

Jean Beers was runner-up with her Piano Trio.

Gregory Rose, the competition adjudicator, commented on the high standard of all six of the entries this year. Of the winning composition he said: 'the overall structure of the piece was extremely well balanced, with just the right length of compositione, limited pitch changes within the instruments that changed at just the right moments, and with a really good sense of instrumental "character"....the coloration between the instruments was extremely interesting to the ear - the piano part towards the end has a particularly well-shaped series of scalic passages around which the other instruments weave....an excellent little work'. He commented that he was 'taken also with Jean Beers' really thoughtful (work) which has a real sense of dialogue and argument between the instruments and a beautifully hushed ending'.

Naomi Pinnock, this year's prizewinner, was born in 1979 and grew up in West Yorkshire. She graduated from King's College, London, in 2001 where she studied composition with Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Ross Lorraine. She is currently on the MMus Composition course, studying under Brian Elias, and was composer-in-residence at Astor College of Arts, Dover for a project commissioned by the Sounds New Festival. Her composition Obstinare was written for the London Sinfonietta as part of a collaboration with Academy composers. It was first performed in March 2003 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, conducted by Dominic Muldowney. Other recently performed works include My first thought was for solo tuba and It Burns in the Void for string orchestra.

This year's runner-up, Jean Beers, was born in Munich in 1983. She has been studying under Christopher Elton, Head of Keyboard at the Royal Academy of Music, since 1999 and is currently a first study piano student. She was awarded the Tim Stevensen Prize for her compositions in 2001 and her Piano Trio was performed the same year. A string quartet, Flimmering Textures, was played by the London Sinfonietta at the Purcell Room, London in April 2002.

The prizewinners for the previous years' competition were: Maciej Zielinski (1999) for Lutoslawski in Memoriam for oboe and piano, Tim Smith (2000) for To Find Trees and Stars for clarinet, piano, violin, cello and viola, Stephane Altier (2001) for Nox for clarinet and piano, and David Gorton (2002) for When does dewfall begin? for cello and piano.

The work will be included in the Young Artist Recital at 1pm on Saturday 8th May 2004 and will be performed by the Chinese / Australian cellist, Liwei Qin.

Concert Piece for Cello and Piano, performed by Joseph Spooner (cello) and Catherine Summerhayes (piano), is included on the excellent CD by the Summerhayes Piano Trio - Alan Bush: Chamber Music Volume 1 issued on the Meridian label in 2002.

]]> http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/news/stories/story36.asp?room=News The Edna Iles Memorial Concert in May 2003 will feature Alan Bush's Nocturne for Piano (Op. 46).

Edna Iles, one of the leading British pianists of the early 20th century who died aged 97 in January 2003, gave the first performance of Nocturne at a MacNaghten Concert in London in March 1958. The first two movements were withdrawn after this first performance and the whole work was later orchestrated by the composer as Variations, Nocturne and Finale on an English Seasong (Op. 60). Nocturne is intended to evoke the nostalgia of a long sea voyage.

The piano version will be performed by Duncan Honeybourne at this concert in memory of Edna Iles, which includes music by Beethoven, Ernst Bloch, Chopin, Medtner and Rachmaninov.

The concert takes place at 7.30pm on Thursday, 8th May 2003 at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, Margaret Street, Birmingham, UK.
Tickets are £8 (Concessions £6).

Two concerts including Alan Bush's late work will take place on:
Friday 11th April 2003 at 7.30pm at St Elvan's Church, Aberdare.
Saturday 12th April 2003 at 7.30pm at the Brunswick Methodist Church, St. Helen's Road, Swansea.

The programme also includes Beethoven's Septet and Serenata in Vano by Nielsen.

The artists performing Alan Bush's Septet are:
Graham Mayger - flute
Jean Marsden - oboe
Verity Fielding - clarinet
Peter Morgan - bassoon
Gabrielle Painter - violin
Annette Morgan - viola
Martin Thomas - cello

Tickets will be available at the door - Prices: £8, Concessions £6, Students and Unwaged £2, School age free.

For more information, contact Peter Morgan:
Telephone: 01792 548231
Email: peterquentin.morgan@ntlworld.com
or visit the Crwth web site.

Ross Winters

The Bush Sonatina has three movements; Introduction and Allegro, Andante quasi larghetto, and Vivo, which are written for treble, tenor and descant recorders. Beginning on the treble recorder, there is a short introduction, followed by a beautiful melodic passage in folk idiom. The second slow movement on the tenor recorder exploits the dark, rich, sonority of the instrument. The third movement opens with a vivacious horn-pipe melody on the descant recorder, followed by a more reflective passage on the treble recorder; this movement returns to the horn-pipe motif on the descant recorder and ends with a great flourish. The Sonatina was beautifully performed by Ross Winters and Christopher Green-Armytage.

Alan Bush composed his Sonatina in 1975 at the request of Ross Winters, who had completed his studies in Amsterdam in 1974 and was about to embark on his career as a recorder player. Ross Winters wrote to the composer, saying "it would be a great kindness if you would consider writing a piece for me". This Alan Bush gladly agreed to do the following year, and the work was dedicated to Ross Winters, whom Alan Bush described as "a phenomenal performer" on the instrument. The first performance was given by Ross Winters (recorders) and Alan Bush (piano) at the Wigmore Hall, London, 11 January 1976. Ross Winters has performed the work on numerous occasions since. The Sonatina was published by Nova Music, London in 1981.

MusicWeb also has two other reviews of the Claudio CD, both very favourable.
Rob Barnett's review can be seen at:
www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2002/Sept02
Peter Grahame Woolf's review can be seen at:
www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2002/Oct02

There is also a review in the orchestral section of International Record Review, December 2002.

  Listen to tracks from the Claudio CD
The Violin Concerto CD can be purchased from Claudio Records

Also on MusicWeb, Chamber Music Vol. 1 was featured as recording of the month for November 2002.
See the review by Rob Barnett at:
www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2002/Dec02

There are other reviews of the CD in International Record Review (December 2002) by Piers Burton-Page and BBC Music Magazine (December 2002) by Michael Oliver.

Piers Burton-Page writes "...a superb CD...these new recordings of his chamber music, convincingly played, excellently engineered and attractively presented...should be on everyone's shopping list".

Michael Oliver says "There is very little British Chamber Music of the Thirties that approaches the intensity, passionate eloquence and intellectual rigour of his Concert Piece, very little from the Forties that can be compared with his Three Concert Studies for exciting economical power and an expressiveness all the more profound for its restraint".

  Listen to tracks from Chamber Music Volume 1
Chamber Music Volume 1 can be purchased from Crotchet Records

The artists are the Bochmann String Quartet with Michael Bochmann (violin), Mark Messenger (violin), Helen Roberts (viola) and Paul Adams (cello). They performed Bush's Dialectic on Redcliffe Recording's 1997 CD, British String Quartets, and at the Centenary Concert at the Wigmore Hall in November 2000.

Alan Bush's work was commissioned by the BBC and given its first performance by the Chilingirian Quartet at St. John's Smith Square, London on 15th December 1975 at a BBC Lunchtime Recital. Its first concert performance took place at the 75th Birthday Concert given by the Workers' Music Association for Alan Bush at the Wigmore Hall on 11th January 1976. Writing about the broadcast performance, the Daily Telegraph, 16th December 1975 wrote: "Alan Bush celebrates his 75th birthday this month and the B.B.C. have marked the occasion by commissioning a new work, 'Suite of Six'... This, the composer's fourth work for quartet, confirms his faith in the principles of structural argument initiated by 'Dialectic' over 40 years ago. The new piece is more relaxed in its succession of eight short movements than the earlier taut structured masterpiece, but the forms are still braced by concentrated development. The fourth movement, for instance, moves quickly from exposition into a paragraph of considerable contrapuntal and motivic tension and then closes without a backward glance."

It is appropriate that Alan Bush's composition should be included on the CD with a work by Frank Bridge, because of the link between the two composers. They got to know one another in about 1929 and corresponded between 1929 and 1933. Alan and Nancy Bush also visited Frank Bridge at his home on more than one occasion. Bridge was very encouraging to Alan Bush, who at that time was a very young composer. Alan Bush was very touched that Frank Bridge took a "kind interest" in his work, in particular, his piano work, Relinquishment. Alan Bush, himself, went out of his way to promote Frank Bridge's work when he was in Germany and performed two piano pieces by Frank Bridge at a recital in Berlin, on 29th January 1931. At this concert he also played his own work Relinquishment.

The full CD listing is:
String Quartet No.4 by Frank Bridge
Suite of Six for String Quartet (Op.81) by Alan Bush
Fantasias for Strings by William Byrd

The Trust is raising money to fund the CD, which will be issued in June 2003. For a minimum subscription of at least £13 we will send you a copy of the C.D. upon its release. All donations should be sent to:
Dr. Rachel O'Higgins
Hon. Secretary
Alan Bush Music Trust
7 Harding Way
Histon
Cambridge CB2 3DA

Edward Gregson

Roger Steptoe

Edward Gregson, Principal of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and Roger Steptoe, who lives and works in the Limousin, France, have music played by the Orchestre Symphonique Régional du Limousin under the baton of Guy Condette. The programme, to be heard three times in the region, is all British-music and launches the orchestra's 2002-2003 season of symphony concerts, opera and ballet in Limoges's modern Grand Theatre.

Steptoe - This Side of Winter (symphonic poem) - World première
Gregson - Tuba Concerto (Thierry Thibault - tuba)
Elgar - Enigma Variations

Grand Theatre, Limoges, France
19 November 2002

Guéret
20 November 2002

Saint Junien
22 November 2002

For more information phone: 00 33 55 5 45 95 95

Formed in the early 1960's, by the conductor Neville Dykes, the orchestra has been based in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, since 1997. It deservedly enjoys a good reputation and an enthusiastic following.

The orchestra, led by Janice Graham (violin), played Bush's lyrical piece very well and all the works were warmly received by the audience.

Bush's work is based on a theme from the Piano Sonata "The Maid of Orleans", composed by Sterndale Bennett who was Principal of the Royal Academy of Music in the mid-19th century.

The work was first performed at the Wigmore Hall on 9th February 1946 by the London String Orchestra, conducted by the composer. The Times Critic wrote at the time: "If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Bush must surely share Schumann's admiration for this rarely played composer...his music has so captured...Bennett's own virginal romanticism as to be almost indistinguishable from it". The Observer described the work as "a most charming and wistful fantasy on motives from this forgotten romantic composer". How ironic that Sterndale Bennett's music is now enjoying a revival, whilst Bush's work is neglected!

In her programme note on Lidice, Mrs Emer Bailey wrote: "No evidence was ever found to support the claim that the inhabitants of the Czech town of Lidice were in anyway involved in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. But in an act of reprisal, on June 10 1942, the town together with all its male inhabitants, was obliterated by the Nazis. The rest of the villagers were sent to concentration camps.

Alan Bush conducting at Lidice

Alan Bush was so horrified by this appalling tragedy that he composed Lidice in 1947 (with words by his wife and librettist, Nancy) for the Workers' Music Association Singers whom he conducted for many years. English composer Bernard Stevens, was assistant conductor at the time and recalls as one of the memorable experiences of his life, the occasion in 1947 when the choir sang the piece on the site of the destroyed town. He describes Lidice as a masterwork that expresses all that we felt on that awe-inspiring occasion, comparable to Shostakovich's memorial to the victims of the destruction of Dresden in the Eighth String Quartet."

The work begins in a sombre mood, describing the scene of devastation once the soldiers had gone. "Silence had returned to Lidice" with its "smould'ring wood" and "shattered stone". Then the tension slowly begins to build to a climax: "An unquenched spirit stirs and springs...to live and burn again". The work ends with a mood of quiet determination reminiscent of the opening bars.

Nancy Bush's poem expresses most clearly the anguish and horror of that terrible scene:

"When the last marching step had gone, and the hands, clenched in agony, the outstretched hands were motionless, silence returned to Lidice.
Voiceless, the threads of smoke crept up from smould'ring wood and shattered stone. The charred beam falling to the ground alone disturbed the empty noon.
Men and women, friends and lovers, now had left the valley lonely, and the despairing child's last cry, as he looked back, an echo, an echo only.
Here ranged along this shallow pit the men of Lidice once stood, and here their last glimpse of the world was this green curve of field and wood.
From the frail cavern of the skull their sightless eyes confront the sky and stare undaunted from the dust, proud men who did not fear to die.
Man's priceless treasure here lies spilt; but from this bitter ash of pain an unquenched spirit stirs and springs, renewed to live and burn again.
Now silent Lidice lies still, and stirs not, yet its stones proclaim, ravaged and mute, to all the world a matchless and immortal fame."

The Maynooth University Chamber Choir was conducted with real understanding by its young conductor, Mr Ciaran Duffy. The clear young voices of the choir conveyed with wonderful tenderness and feeling, the pathos and anguish of the work. The choir had very good diction, which enabled the audience to hear Nancy Bush's words clearly. It was a very moving performance and a welcome revival of a beautiful work.

Rachel O'Higgins, April 2002.

This collection of essays includes the autobiographical title essay where the composer outlines his social and philosophical outlook. Click here to view a shortened version of the title essay.

To obtain a copy of the book, write to:
The Hon. Secretary
Alan Bush Music Trust
7 Harding Way
Histon
Cambridge
CB4 9JH

Price £8.50 (including p&p).

Please mail info@alanbushtrust.org.uk for further details.