PIERS LANE GOES TO TOWN (Hyperion CDA67967)

Piers Lane, piano

Down Longford Way, (No 2 of Four Musical Sketches for Piano) Katharine Parker
Toccata (Movement 4 of Suite), Alan Lane
Toccata for Piers Lane, Anthony Doheny
Ballerina, John Ireland
Jesu, joy of man’s desiring, (Movement 10 of Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV147) J S Bach , arr. Dame Myra Hess
Marigold, Billy Mayerl
Naila Waltz, Léo Delibes , arr. Ernö Dohnányi
Margaritki, ‘Daisies’ (No 3 of Six Romances, Op 38) Sergei Rachmaninov
Dizzy Fingers, Zez Confrey
Barcarolles, Mark Saya
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square, Manning Sherwin, arr. Regis Danillon
Nocturne No 4 in C minor ‘Bal fantôme’, Francis Poulenc
Bach goes to town ‘Prelude and Fugue in swing’, Alec Templeton
Jamaican Rumba, Arthur Benjamin
The Tiger Tango, (Movement 3 of Save the Animals Suite) Robert Keane
Variations on a well-known theme, Antony Hopkins
Arabesque No 1 in G flat major ‘Filigran’ Op 5, Sigfrid Karg-Elert
Beethoven Parody ‘And the same to you’, Dudley Moore
Irish tune from County Derry, Percy Grainger

‘Ballerina’ by John Ireland may sound familiar, but this is in fact the first recording of a piece published only after the recording sessions. It is the early version of Ireland’s ‘Columbine’ (1951), originally called ‘Impromptu’, a title its composer disliked. For its recent publication it was renamed ‘Ballerina’, a working title used by Ireland on one of his sketches for the piece, now held in the British Library. It was originally commissioned in 1949 by the American screenwriter William Rose, as a present for his wife Tania (née Price). Ireland reworked it before its publication as ‘Columbine’ two years later. Alan Bush, the trenchant British composer who studied with Ireland from 1927 to 1932, used to play this early version and preferred it to the revised ‘Columbine’, which he described as bowdlerized! After a performance I gave in Milan of Ireland’s Piano Concerto, Bruce Phillips, Director of The John Ireland Charitable Trust, asked me what other Ireland I was performing for the fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s death. I mentioned this recording and the possibility of including the delicious ‘valse lente’ ‘Columbine’; it was he who suggested I might consider ‘Ballerina’ instead. Piers Lane