Reaching deep into the English modernist repertoire, Lyrita has joined together four chamber works and four piano works by three composers. Up first is
Lennox Berkeley, with his soulful and slightly melancholy Sonatina for violin and piano followed by his angular and robustly rhythmic Sextet for clarinet, horn, and string quartet. Up last is Alan Rawsthorne, with his lean and linear Quartet for clarinet and string trio. Between them is Alan Bush, with his archly modernist Three Concert Studies for piano trio and an entirely charming set of four pieces for piano.
Berkeley's Sonatina and Sextet and Bush's Three Concert Studies are played with style and energy by members of the Music Group of London, with violinist Hugh Bean applying an especially sweet vibrato to the Sonatina's central Lento. The Rawsthorne quartet receives an appropriately edgy and aggressive reading from clarinetist Thea King and three members of the Aeolian Quartet, while Bush's four piano pieces receive four rhapsodic but empathetic performances from the composer himself. Recorded in the early '70s, Lyrita's stereo sound is uniformly cool, clear, and deep.