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Published See individual works Recordings Eric
Parkin Eric Parkin Iris Loveridge
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Solo Piano Works
I am grateful, as ever to Barry Marsh, for his notes, and also to J Martin Stafford for permission to use extracts from his Eric Parkin CD. For anyone having difficulty in obtaining this CD, he writes "I will send the Moeran disc to any address in the world (air mail where appropriate) for £12-50 (cheque to me) or a $20-00 bill (not cheque, as my bank would charge me about $10 to convert it to sterling). I am only an e-mail message or a letter away, so no one who wants my products should have too much difficulty in obtaining them." You can contact J Martin Stafford, 298 Blossomfield Road, Solihull, B91 1TH, England, visit the website, or e-mail: ISMERON99@cs.com
Barry Marsh's Piano Works Notes These are Moeran's first published compositions;
they also mark the start of a lifelong love affair with Ireland,
its scenery and its people. Early in 1918 he had come to Boyle in
County Roscommon to recuperate from his war injuries. His first
response to the landscape presents us with an impression not of
reality but of other-worldliness. The Lake Island evokes Yeats's
`land of fairie', unfolding lento over the calm and peaceful water.
As a student, Moeran had heard Bax's
In the Faery Hills. Autumn Woods owes something to that composer's
tone poem November Woods, composed only the year before (1917).
By contrast, At a Horse Fair is a lively depiction of a fair that
Moeran had attended in Roscommon. For the first time we hear the
offbeat rhythms which were to colour so many of his later works.
Theme and Variations (1920) R5 The theme, introduced andante, seems
instantly recognisable and yet cannot be categorised. A Norfolk
folksong, surely? But no. It is Moeran's own, and its beauty serves
as the basis for six variations and a finale. The first two are
marked Poco piu moto and Allegro scherzando. The third, Alla marcia
a con energico, is a march built out of rising octaves, which climax
only to fall away into stillness. By contrast, Variation 4 is a
calm Allegretto mixing bars of 6/8 and 9/8. The fifth, Vivace, reveals
Moeran's true stature and looks forward to the Cello Sonata of 1947.
Variation 6 is slow and songlike, non troppo lento a rubato. A series
of violent chords wakes us from our reverie as the finale, Allargando
ma non troppo brings this, the most extended of his piano pieces,
to its scintillating conclusion. In 1920 Moeran resumed his studies at
the Royal College of Music. His composition teacher was John
Ireland, whose influence is clearly heard in this work of 1921.
If the style is derivative, the structure is individual, transforming
a rather limpid introduction into a more eventful dance in 6/8 time. Written in Norfolk at the same time as
Stalham River, the music is characterised by the emergence of its
theme in chords contrasted by a singing central section. Again the
writing is florid, in the manner of Debussy's
Children's Corner Suite, for which Moeran had a great affection.
The inscription on the manuscript "Bacton,
Norfolk September 1921" refers to the village where the family had
been living since 1913. Expeditions
into the East Norfolk countryside often brought the composer to
the tiny hamlets of Sutton and Stalham. With its florid writing,
this is a loving portrait of that part of the world which he knew
so well and which inspired the 1924 orchestral piece Lonely
Waters. The Norfolk countryside impressed the
young Moeran, particularly on his long
walks from village to village in search of folk songs. After
a short introduction the main theme of Windmills develops presto
from a three bar fragment. The reiterated accompanying figure suggests
the whirling of windmill sails - a familiar sight on the Broadland
skyline. Elegy brings us to the heart of the matter, a dreamy pastorale
yet with hints of darker moods below the surface - a prophetic glimpse
perhaps of the composer's own destiny. Burlesque whirls us around,
calling to mind the music of Mahler, of whom he was to write: his
music is perfectly sublime to the point of spiritual ecstacy. By 1923 Moeran was on the threshold of
success. Folksong had been
the unifying element in his first orchestral rhapsody but, as with
Vaughan Williams, it was so much a
part of his subconscious that he could just as easily create his
own. This is how A Folk Story is cast. Rune is more elusive but
no less atmospheric. Its title, which relates to the Viking `alphabet
of signs' may owe something to Bax's interest in the subject. Moeran
had met him in 1919, but both composers were influenced by a greater
master, who had long ago fallen under the spell of the Norse myths
- Sibelius. Moeran dedicated this piece to Delius,
whom he fervently admired ever since hearing his Piano Concerto
while still a student. Delius's style is imitated in a beautiful
Sicilienne, a form often used in Delius's tone poems. The layout
of Summer Valley seems to show Moeran thinking more of orchestral
colour than of the textures of the piano. This short celebratory piece, with more
than an echo of Percy Grainger's Shepherd's
Hey, seems to be Moeran's way of expressing optimism for a new future.
1925 was, after all, the year in whch he would break away from his
conventional family background and go to live with the equally unconventional
Peter Warlock. Moeran's visits to Ireland did not become
frequent until the early 1930s, so this folk song might have been
brought to his attention by Peter Warlock
(who too had spent some time in Ireland and to whom this arrangement
is dedicated). On the other hand, Moeran might have heard it as
early as 1918. Hamilton Harty, another
of Moeran's mentors, also used this tune in his Irish Symphony. Moeran made his piano arrangement of
this Irish folk song in 1927, a significant year in which he was
considering how to exorcise the dominant influence of Peter
Warlock. The overt use of chromaticism is here avoided in favour
of simplicity. The tune must have haunted Moeran; for shortly before
he died in 1950 he was contemplating a Symphonic Scena to verses
by his friend Niall O'Leary Curtis, the last part of which was to
have been based on The White Mountain. Several of Moeran's works after 1930
are pervaded by an underlying sadness which mirrors a loss. Peter
Warlock had died in that year. The hymn-like almost mournful
sadness of the Prelude in G minor is in curious contrast to the
perky echoes of `Tom, Tom the Piper's Son' in the middle section.
The Berceuse is a continuous melody rooted in the traditions of
folk- song, freely accompanied but also harmonised in the grandest
Delian manner.
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Piano Music Three
Pieces (1919)
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