Bingham’s (b. Nottingham, 1952) music for chorus and organ has been previously released on CD, but this is the 1st recording of her piano music. She used to live near Westminster Cathedral, the inspiration for the opening work, The Moon over Westminster Cathedral. Bingham spent several years as a member of the BBC Singers, which may help explain the lyricism of her music.

REVIEW:

No fewer than five first recordings feature in this very special disc. Judith Bingham is a highly imaginative composer who, on the evidence of the booklet notes of the current release, writes eloquently on her own music. The recording (made at The Venue, Leeds, October 2009) is wonderfully present.

Byron, Violent Progress is a set of 13 variations on the song She Walks in Beauty in the Night by Bingham herself. The two-minute theme is rather dark and brims with promise for variation. Jones gives it out with a sort of restrained care, as if handling a precious object. Bingham segments the score so that it is in three movements. The ruminative first variation sets out the sense of space evoked here. Bingham refers to the opening of the second movement (variation 5) as a “bright Alpine landscape” and, with its upwardly-bound phrases and glinting, glacial gestures, it is easy to hear why. A change of texture to a skeletal counterpoint marks the onset of the third movement.

Jones plays with the perfect amount of concentration for Christmas Past, Christmas Present (1989), intended as adult reminiscences of Christmases past, delicate nostalgia weighs heavily here, while Chopin is an evocation of the spirit of that composer as opposed to any sort of pastiche. Annunication II, part of a sequence of works for various instruments that address a different aspect of the annunciation, is distinctly Lisztian in its holy aura as well as its use of tremolo. Jones gives a masterly account. The end hangs beautifully in the air.

Finally, Pictured Within (1981) a portrait of six people (one of whom is fictional) within four movements. It is a walk on the dark side of Bingham’s psyche (her booklet notes are quite open about the time of the work’s composition being a difficult one for her). One can hear the concentration of language throughout.

-- Fanfare