Catalogue Connection: 25234

Marking the centenary of Yorkshire composer William Baines (1899-1922), this generously filled disc consists of a wide selection of his piano music, followed by a set of songs and concludes with a substantial piano piece written by Robin Walker in tribute to Baines.  At the keyboard throughout the programme is Duncan Honeybourne, a musician with an innate understanding of the melodic and structural strengths of Baines’ music.

The programme begins with Paradise Gardens, an exquisite tone poem that marries elegance with intensity.  In Honeybourne’s deeply considered, wonderfully assured account the score unfolds with a perfect balance of inevitability and spontaneity.   In The Naïad, fluid, cascading outer portions frame a central episode of controlled ecstasy, perfectly judged in this reading.  Silverpoints is a set of four vignettes in which the opening ‘Labyrinth’ evokes the sea’s profound mysteries with its implacable recurring figure, while ‘Water Pearls’ is a sparkling, airy scherzo, ‘The Burning Joss-Stick’ has a tenebrous grandeur, and ‘Floralia’ is a joyful rural idyll.  Duncan Honeybourne’s painterly skills ensure these colourful miniatures resonate with the listener.  

Tides  consists of two dramatic tone poems: ‘The Lone Wreck’ is a memorable depiction of a deserted seacraft and ‘Goodnight to Flamboro’’ is a darkly wistful seascape that builds to a fierce climax and ends with a ray of hope.  They receive detailed, ideally paced performances.  The Island of Fay contains some of the most impassioned, harmonically adventurous music on the disc and its intricate, sinuous lines are relished here.  

Pictures of Light is a set of three pieces assembled posthumously by Frederick Dawson: ‘Draft-Light’ is a sustained, mesmeric study that sounds fresh and vibrant, while ‘Bursting Flames’ has a capricious energy, and ‘Pool-Lights’, the composer’s final composition, has an austere, glacial calm.  The set of Eight Preludes was constructed by the pianist Robert Keys from manuscripts left by Baines and they make a satisfyingly varied collection. Nos.1 and 4, which are untitled, have the rigour of an étude, while ‘Ebbing Tide’, ‘Shade-Imagery’ and ‘Wind Sprites’ are perhaps the most instantly evocative, responding readily to Honeybourne’s interpretative imagination.

Tenor Gordon Pullin joins the pianist for Baines’ Five Songs, a compact cycle that begins gently with ‘Fountains’, to an enchanting text by James Elroy Flecker and continues energetically with the darting ‘Fern Song’, with lyrics by John Banister Tabb.  ‘By the Sea’ is a hypnotic, contemplative setting of poetry by Christiana Rosetti, while the Sappho setting ‘A Lyric (The Vigil) has a restless, shadowy quality and the cycle ends impressively with the vigorous, buoyant ‘Morning’ to words by Rabindranath Tagore.

The disc concludes with an intensely committed performance of At the Grave of William Baines, written by the composer Robin Walker in 1999.  This brooding, darkly powerful score captures the turbulence and the extreme highs and lows of Baines’ life and also preserves within its winding, ornate melodic lines something of the young composer’s own euphoric pianism.  Duncan Honeybourne shapes the music with an unerring sense of climactic points so that, despite its considerable intricacies, the piece evolves cogently and with an unassailable sense of rightness.

William Baines is an important voice in early twentieth-century British music and he has been well served by this impressive release.  The ardent and noble rendering of Robin Walker’s heartfelt homage is a considerable bonus.  Highly recommended.    

This enterprising disc from Divine Art illustrates the sadly short-lived British composer who is new to this reviewer. So who is William Baines? Born in Yorkshire in 1899, he was conscripted towards the end of World War I. Just a few weeks later, he became ill with sceptic poisoning. He did recover by January 1919, but this left him physically damaged and vulnerable. On the positive side, it also matured him as a composer. He had taken piano lessons at an early age and then began formal training in Leeds, after which he was self-taught. Despite becoming better known around 1920—one reviewer called him simply “a genius”—and continuing to compose and perform, his health deteriorated further, and he died from tuberculosis in 1922 at the age of 23. He had managed to compose around 150 pieces in that short life, many of them for piano.

The disc opens with Paradise Gardens. This Impressionistic work was one of his first successes. Serene and poised describes the work and the excellent playing of the pianist, Duncan Honeybourne. Tides, consisting of two dramatic tone poems, was inspired by the sea, especially around the Yorkshire coast, near where Baines had lived. Baines himself said, “I am like Debussy, I have learnt more from the wind than from any master.” There is a parallel between these pieces and Benjamin Britten’s later Peter Grimes in that they both use the North Sea to color their work. Baines named the piece after the area of Yorkshire known as Flamborough Head. The Eight Preludes—one of the many first recordings on this CD, including Pictures of Light and the Five Songs—are from 1919 and very dramatic. Six were constructed by pianist Robert Keys from various manuscripts left by Baines, according to the excellent notes. They were only given a first broadcast performance on the BBC in 1956. The last piece, “Eroica,” is wild indeed. The Five Songs are sung by tenor Gordon Pullin, who should have recorded these some years before. He is a specialist in English song, and his diction is excellent, and he puts the songs across powerfully. However throughout he is hardly steady, and this reduces much of the impact of these songs. The last, “Morning,” set to a text by Rabindranath Tagore, is a quicker song and is not a pleasant listen. Robin Walker, a composer who was born in Yorkshire like Baines, wrote the last piece after a pilgrimage he made to the grave of William Baines during the centenary of his birth in 1999. It is a highly emotive piece and splendidly played by Honeybourne.

Divine Art have brought this composer out of obscurity, hopefully to reach a bigger audience. Honeybourne is both gripping and stylish in his playing throughout these testing compositions. It is sad that the songs stand out for the wrong reasons. Excellent and very helpful notes and texts are supplied by the artists, together with clear and warm sound. This is certainly recommended for all those who wish to expand their knowledge of forgotten British composers.

English pianist and composer William Baines (1899-1922) wrote more than 150 works for solo piano and a number of larger orchestral works. He was called to WWI military service in 1938 when he had just turned 18. Though he was not killed in service, the septic poisoning he suffered led to his early death from tuberculosis at age 23. This album was produced to honor him on the centenary of his death.

The program, Pictures of Light, also the title of a set of three pieces heard midway  through, consists mostly of Baines’s piano pieces composed in an impressionist style. It begins with the longest work of the album, Paradise Gardens, a sensual paean to nature, followed by The Naiad with its twinkling homage to Ravel. Several pieces evoke Chopin and Scriabin. Two sets of pieces, Pictures of Light and Eight Preludes, were assembled posthumously from his works by Baines’s advocates. All are performed splendidly by Honeybourne, who makes a convincing case for these pieces—and who also wrote the fine program notes.

The program concludes with Five Songs, settings of texts by poets as different as Christina Rossetti, Sapho, and Rabindranath Tagore. They are recorded here for the first time. Gordon Pullin has long been associated with the music of Baines. Though he is past his prime as a singer, Pullin sings the five songs with fine expression and clear articulation of the words. His recording of these songs for the first time here is a tribute to his longstanding advocacy and performance of the composer’s music. Pullin also wrote the liner notes for the songs.

The album concludes with At the Grave of William Baines, composed in 1999 by fellow Yorkshireman Robin Walker to mark the centenary of the composer’s birth; it serves as a fitting tribute by a living composer to one who inspired him. Walker uses some of the twinkling writing we heard in The Naiad  by Baines and ends with what suggests the tolling of a church bell to mourn his death.

This album is a bittersweet reminder of a composer whose early compositions showed such promise and who was lost to the world by the horror of war. Texts are included.

It is remarkable that there have not been more releases of William Baines’s music to commemorate the centenary of his death in 1922. He was clearly one of the finest British composers for the piano and by the time of his death at the age of just twenty three had created an impressively large number of compositions of lasting value. No British composer achieved so much of this quality by such a young age, with the possible exception of Kenneth Leighton. Curiously, both of these composers were from Yorkshire, though their music is, of course, very different stylistically. This disc is especially interesting because it includes pieces which have never been commercially released before; some of these premier recordings fascinatingly demonstrate how Baines worked in a genre not usually associated with him, that of songwriting.

To the best of my knowledge, there is just one single disc currently available that is entirely devoted to Baines’s music, the splendid 1996 recording by Eric Parkin on the Priory label. This supersedes an earlier Lyrita record that Parkin had released in 1972 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Baines’s death (later released on CD and rather oddly coupled with some of Moeran’s piano works). The later recording is much to be preferred in terms of both performance and sound quality. There are several discs available that include isolated tracks of Baines piano pieces, such as a Heritage disc by Peter Jacobs. There is also a rather fine Swinsty CD, coupling Baines with Goossens, performed by pianist Alan Cuckston, which seems to have been unfairly overlooked by many critics. Duncan Honeybourne himself released a sumptuously played and recorded version of Baines’s magnificent Seven Preludes (one of his major works) on an EM Records disc back in 2013, which I reviewed at the time in glowing terms. This was coupled with works by Moeran, though it cannot be admitted that these two composers have a great deal in common, musically speaking.

I have noted that many reviewers have discussed Baines in terms of other composers; frequent comparisons have been drawn with Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin and Bridge, for example. What is striking is how Baines has absorbed these influences and arrived at a distinctive manner of his own; how many composers arrive at an individual style at such a young age? While his music has clearly benefited from the innovations in piano writing made by French early twentieth century composers, Baines’s work is always instantly recognisable. It is considerably darker than Debussy and far more harmonically adventurous that Ravel. Furthermore, there is a limpid English quality in Baines’s piano writing, hard to define but nevertheless still present, that separates his music from the work of Scriabin. A good example of this is the beautiful Floralia from his suite Silverpoints; this sounds (to my ears at least) nothing like any of the composers mentioned above.

So how do Honeybourne’s performances measure up to these earlier recordings? His version of Paradise Gardens is, in my opinion, the finest now before the public. Curiously it is slower than other performances I have heard, but far more flexible and subtle. Baines’s frequent use of ostinati can seem to be a bit of a mannerism in this piece, but Honeybourne avoids any hint of monotony by making his reading more fluid. He achieves this through a sensitive use of rubato, a masterly use of pedalling and a strong feeling for the poetic mood of this piece; Eric Parkin’s version seems rather rushed in comparison.I defy anyone to hear these new performances of William Baines’s solo piano pieces and not be swept away by the music, the performance and the recording. Tides, perhaps Baines’s most immediately striking work, is given an inspired reading on this disc. Even pieces that seemed a little puzzling in other recordings, such as The Naiad, make perfect sense here. Eric Parkin’s 1996 version once again seems a touch hasty; this new rendition seems far more cogent and meaningful. Of the three Pictures of Light miniatures, the second is the most musically striking and is brilliantly realised here. The Eight Preludes, recorded here for the first time, are also fascinating; the Lullaby (Prelude No. 7) is absolutely lovely, though on this occasion one might wish that the music went on for just a little longer.

It is particularly interesting to hear Baines’s Five Songs in their first appearance on CD. My overall verdict is that these pieces are interesting but not essential works within the composer’s output. They flesh out our knowledge of the composer and show that he is certainly more versatile than he is given credit for. However, my reaction is rather similar to when I first encountered Howard Ferguson’s Discovery song cycle. Both sets are made up of five miniature songs and both last under nine minutes. In these two cycles I sense a skilful and sensitive response to each text but am also left with the feeling that neither composer is completely at home in art song. (Gerald Finzi’s Dies Natalis is a perfect example of music by a born vocal composer). It was a lovely idea to involve the tenor Gordon Pullin, as he was the original singer when these songs featured in the BBC radio documentary about Baines Goodnight to Flamboro’. Pullin sings with total commitment in this recording.

I had not heard any music by Robin Walker before, but was hugely impressed by his At the Grave of William Baines. I can hear much that reminds me of the earlier composer, but also much that is original to Walker; this is certainly no pastiche. I was so taken by this imposing piece that I went on to listen to Walker’s orchestral work The Stone Maker; this is a remarkable post-Sibelian musical canvas that demands to be heard. So here we have a splendid new disc with inspiring music in glowing recorded sound. The performances are first class and the documentation is superb; this production appears to be a labour of love. I should like to suggest that future releases of Baines’s music include one of his piano sonatas. It would also be lovely to have a commercial recording of the gorgeous Poem-Nocturne of 1919 – not Baines’s most original work, admittedly, but irresistible all the same. In the meantime, there is a fine rendition of this haunting piece by John Peace available on YouTube.

The English composer-pianist William Baines (1899-1922) was a composer of enormous potential who died before his 23rd birthday, leaving us to wonder what might have been. Two others who come to mind similarly are Joan Crisóstomo Arriaga (1806-1826 and Lili Boulanger (1893-1918). This collection of mostly piano music (Baines left behind more than 150 works for the instrument), plus five songs, reveals a composer of significant talent and an individual voice. Chopin and Debussy seem to me to have been influences on Baines, but his music, even though written at such a young age, is not merely imitative.

Paradise Gardens was inspired by a scenic evening walk near York that Baines took with his mother and brother at the age of 19. He wrote about “a lovely view overlooking the gardens of the Station Hotel. You looked through the thick green foliage on to the grounds, which were beautifully laid out with flowers – and in the center a little fountain was playing. A perfect blue sky and the sun shining low made indeed a grand picture. ‘Paradise Gardens’ will on some future occasion probably be used as a title for one of my compositions.” Indeed he began writing this grand tone poem for piano two days later. The 10-minute work is lovely, combining poetic tenderness and intimacy with the grandeur Baines described.

The Naïad is one of a set of three Concert Studies, modelled on Ravel’s “Ondine” in its textures. Nature was a constant source of inspiration for Baines, as we hear in other piano works on the program: Silverpoints, Tides, The Island of Fay, and Pictures of Light. In Tides, which draws its inspiration from the sea, the first movement, “The Lone Wreck,” paints a desolate picture of an abandoned ship resting on the ocean bottom as the waters swirl around it. It is not too far-fetched to hear music that presages Britten’s Peter Grimes composed more than two decades later. Baines uses chromaticism to darken the colors of his music, bringing to it a melancholy aura.

The five songs that follow are set to a variety of poets: James Elroy Flecker, John Banister Tabb, Christina Rossetti, Sappho, and Rabindranath Tagore. The songs are lovely and sung with great care by British tenor Gordon Pullin, whose voice, unfortunately, sounds considerably past its best years. However, there are almost 70 minutes of fine piano pieces before the songs arrive. The disc concludes with a piano work by Robin Walker, composed in 1999 to mark the centenary of Baines’s birth. At the Grave of William Baines is an appropriate tribute, recalling to some degree Baines’s style but also embracing the duality of “exaltation and tragedy” in attempting to celebrate Baines’s gift while mourning his loss. This, along with Baines’s piano music, is sensitively and colorfully played by Duncan Honeybourne, who also contributes the fine program notes. Excellent recorded sound rounds out the picture.

On November 6, 1922, William Baines died at the age of twenty-three, largely due to the consequences of septicemia contracted at the front in the last days of the Great War. His name was linked to so many victims – and in his particular case to the other English musicians and writers who suffered an end like his. His work is extensive, almost one hundred and fifty pieces, the vast majority of them for piano, and time has cornered it not only within the geographical domain of the British Isles but also into the limbo of oblivion. The admirable pianist Eric Parkin, also a champion of the music of the much more renowned John Ireland, tried to get it out of that oblivion more than a quarter of a century ago, with a wonderful album published under the Priory label, which, curiously, can still be found on the internet and, of course, on the usual platforms. Parkin’s excellent technique revealed the sources and virtues of Baines’s music, its inspiration and where his originality lay.

It is now Duncan Honeybourne who, on the centenary of the composer’s death, remembers his figure and the interest in his music, updating Parkin’s task although repeating almost all the pieces from that album. As then, the influences appear multiple, clear but intelligently assumed and combined. From Chopin and Liszt to Scriabin (the most) and Debussy – and, for Honeybourne more than Parkin, Janacek in The Lone Wreck – but all with something undoubtedly personal, the abundance of expression, the zero fear of exaltation, that comes from the relationship of these musics with a landscape of its own, the one that is contemplated with the view, and that other more intimate that surrounds everything.

The disc adds the Five Songs, on texts by James Elroy Flecker, John Banister Tabb, Christina Rossetti, Sappho and Rabindranath Tagore in versions – a fresher voice would have been better – by veteran tenor Gordon Pullin, who also seems to be paying tribute for his years of service to British music.

Completing the program is At the Grave of William Baines,  substantial piano piece by Robin Walker inspired by the composer’s last words: “I would have liked to live but I am not afraid of death.” Surely it will not be enough to bring Baines’ music back to life, but this album reveals very well how much remains to be heard for those who prefer to discover rather than settle.

What a remarkable talent William Baines was. He composed at a ferocious rate; a forty minute symphony when he was seventeen, numerous movements and works for string quartet, a handful of songs all crowned by around 150 piano pieces. But he was dead eight months after his twenty third birthday. During his brief life, and certainly in the years following, his genius was recognised and even into the 1950’s performers were advocating for his music. I first became aware of him – as I guess did many others – through the Lyrita LP performed by the ever questing and indefatigable Eric Parkin in 1972 – presumably to mark the 50^th anniversary of his death. Given the calibre of the music it is slightly surprising and depressing that 50 years later in the centenary year there has actually only been further complete disc devoted to Baines (also from Parkin but on the Priory label) in 1995 where curiously and disappointingly for collectors the repertoire was nearly exactly copied from the first disc with a couple of very brief exceptions. Since then Alan Cuckston shared a (very good) disc with music by Eugene Goossens but apart from single works appearing on recital discs that is just about it.

Which is a surprise because this music is never less than very attractive, certainly individual and always intriguing. The music of the French Impressionists is a fairly undigested influence – certainly the innocent ear would guess a continental provenance before a British one. But Baines was a very young man and more remarkably essentially self-taught so there is a passion and a sincere spontaneity to this music that cuts through any accusations of derivity. As such this new disc from Duncan Honeybourne is to be warmly welcomed. Honeybourne has an impressive discography already especially in the field of less well known British piano music. I have enjoyed his collections of John Joubert’s complete piano works and especially the remarkable Christopher Edmunds’ Piano Sonata– one of several recordings for EM records. Here he is perfectly attuned to the complex sound world of Baines’ keyboard writing and has the technical resources to deal easily with the intricate and demanding aspects of the music too. The only slight disappointment is that of the solo piano works only the Eight Preludes [collated from various manuscripts by Robert Keys after the composer’s death] are new to the catalogue. These are different works from the Seven Preludes recorded twice by Parkin. The disc opens with Paradise Gardens which is – a relative term – Baines’ most famous work and is the one that appears in every recital and programme. Certainly it embodies both his aesthetic and musical style – the fact he was just nineteen when he wrote it is all the more remarkable. Honeybourne is significantly more languorous than any other performance I have heard but effectively so.

What emerges from the disc as a whole is that the music – as interpreted across the different discs – can support a diverging range of styles. This is a sure sign of musical substance. Another feature reinforced by this new recital is how at home Baines is writing for the keyboard. By all accounts he had large hands and an individual technique but there is a strong sense that he intuitively understood keyboard writing. Several of his piano scores can be viewed on IMSLP here including most of this recital. The eye confirms what the ear hears – this is complex yet confident writing quite different from the far more generic symphony which is yet to receive a professional performance but can be heard in a rather ropey but committed performance on YouTube by an amateur orchestra. Very clearly the teenaged composer is ‘working out’ how to write for an orchestra – and failing more often than not! – in a way he does not on piano.

Yes of course Debussy casts a very substantial shadow over nearly all this music but in comparison to other British composers at this time – with the possible exception of Cyril Scott – I cannot think of another who so successfully embraces the potential of Impressionism in their scores. The sadness and frustration must be the thought of what might have become as Baines developed his own voice further as he matured as a composer. In effect this is his juvenilia and by that measure it is the equal of any. Honeybourne includes the powerful and brooding pair of pieces that makes up Tides and the three works of Pieces of Light that give the disc its title (and were included by Cuckston as well) are just ravishingly beautiful. The previously mentioned Eight Preludes are in the main very brief, some almost fragmentary. Honeybourne contributes a useful liner about the music and he states that the surviving manuscripts lacked performance directions which makes one wonder if they were first drafts or work in progress. Whatever the truth of that they are valuable for the Baines enthusiast as in part they do suggest how the composer was expanding his musical vocabulary.

Also new to the catalogue are the Five Songs where Honeybourne turns accompanist for tenor Gordon Pullin. Pullin has been a long time advocate and performer of Baines so the sincerity of these performances is never in doubt. Unfortunately the voice itself is now thin and worn-sounding. The texts – drawn from a wide variety of authors from Elroy Flecker to Rossetti and Tagore – are clear and well articulated but too often it sounds as if the singer is simply having to husband his vocal resources rather than sing the songs as they should be sung. Certainly, I am glad to have had the opportunity to hear these for all the performing limitations. Again there is a sense that Baines the song writer is not as confident yet in this idiom as he is for keyboard alone but the promise is significant. The disc is completed by Robin Walker’s At the grave of William Baines. Walker also acts as the disc’s producer and he contributes a personal note outlining his lifelong engagement with the composer and his music. At 16:06 rather dwarves any of Baines’ music given here – apart from 10:32 for Paradise Gardens the next longest work is the 5:04 The Island of the Fay. The work is not a pastiche of the other’s work but more a response to his life and work and an interpretation of that response. This is a sombre, austere and more overtly modernistic work. Honeybourne gives another predictably assured and convincing performance. Powerful though this piece undoubtedly is, to be honest in the context of this disc I would rather have heard another fifteen minutes of unknown Baines – others may enjoy Walker’s contrasting commentary more than I.

The presentation of the disc is good with the booklet illustrated with some of Richard Bell’s line drawings of locations that inspired Baines as well as biographical and musical information. The recording is pretty good technically. The instrument Honeybourne plays is unnamed and to my ear it is slightly clangourous in the upper register. This sounds like a function of the actual piano itself rather than the acoustic – it is not serious but enough to detract somewhat from the overall listening pleasure. I had not seen the photograph of Baines that is on the booklet cover – it’s a wonderfully natural and relaxed image of a young man grinning at the camera – far more informal than most composer portraits you encounter from 1921. In some way this encapsulates the original and free-spirited nature of both the man and the music he wrote. Hopefully more of his impressive musical legacy will become available soon.

The sole vocal entry on a new Divine Art CD featuring music of the short-lived William Baines (1899-1923: a victim of tuberculosis) is also the only world première recording on the disc. For Five Songs, Gordon Pullin’s well-modulated tenor voice merges expressively with Duncan Honeybourne’s piano. Four of these five songs last less than two minutes, the fifth only two-and-a-half, and these miniatures are very much of their time: they are Impressionistic, pleasant, with some well-done tone-painting (especially in the second, Fern Song), but are ultimately not particularly consequential – although Baines’ determination to keep the words clearly audible while having the piano paint scenic backgrounds is admirable. The remaining works on the disc, although not world premières, are somewhat more substantive, at least in toto – none of them individually stands out as exceptional music-making except the first and longest, Paradise Gardens, an expressive and well-paced 10-and-a-half-minute journey to and exploration of a pleasantly manicured outdoor world. The Naïad and The Island of the Fay are single-movement portrayals of their subject matter that use the piano effectively, showing considerable command of the instrument’s expressive potential. The other pieces here are multi-movement suites: Silverpoints has four portrayals, Tides two, Pictures of Light three, and each of the Eight Preludes conjures up a different small scene (six of the eight bear specific titles). Baines is shown here as a miniaturist with harmonic and expressive orientations similar to those of other composers of the early 20^th century, such as Debussy and Ravel. His ability to evoke a scene within a few minutes is impressive, and if much of this material is of the salon-music type, it is not really “light” music but is expressive and heartfelt, clearly exemplifying its time period if not really exploring new directions or dimensions. The CD ends with an extended “tribute” piece called At the Grave of William Baines by Robin Walker (born 1953).

The exceptionally gifted British composer William Baines died 100 years ago on 6 November 1922; he was just 23, yet he left behind a remarkably large body of work, which is celebrated in this new release from pianist Duncan Honeybourne, a long-time champion of Baines’ music.

William Baines came from a musical family (his father was a cinema pianist and organist at a Primitive Methodist Chapel). He took piano lessons from a young age and also studied at the Yorkshire Training College of Music in Leeds, though his later compositional style was largely self-taught. At the age of 18, in the final months of the First World War, Baines was called up for military service and was sent to Blandford Camp, Dorset, for training. Within weeks he fell ill with septic poisoning and remained in fragile health after discharge from the military until his death in 1922. After the War, Baines set to composing, producing around 150 works by the time of his death, many of which were piano miniatures.

When a composer, such as Schubert or Mozart, or indeed William Baines, dies young it always begs the question “what might they have gone on to write”? There are certainly some intriguing hints throughout this generous disc.

Baines described himself as “like Debussy” and while some of his music is certainly impressionistic in style – in particular the Pictures of Light suite and the atmospheric diptych Tides, which evokes the coast and sea of his native Yorkshire – there are also unexpected and daring modernist idioms, unsettled harmonies and conflicting textures redolent of Scriabin, Ravel, and Prokofiev (Baines’ Eight Preludes were written at the same time as Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives).

Some of the pieces on this disc share that particularly English romantic/pastoral soundworld of Delius and Ireland, yet everything is distinctly Baines.

The album includes first recordings of Eight Preludes – Set 2, and Pictures of Light, together with Baines’ most well-known works, Tides and Paradise Gardens. The album also includes a suite of five songs for tenor and piano, sensitively and emotionally sung by Gordon Pullin – also a first recording. At the Grave of William Baines is a substantial piece for piano written by Robin Walker, a fellow Yorkshireman who as a boy lived near to the house in York where Baines lived and died, and whose music also draws inspiration from the natural world and local landscapes. His tribute is surprisingly muscular, playful, and rather exotic, replete with hints of Baines, and imaginatively shaped by Honeybourne.

Duncan Honeybourne is very much at home in Baines’ picturesque, atmospheric music. He is ever alert to the ecstatic climaxes and sweeping, Lisztian romanticism, bringing supple, flexible tempi and subtle rubato to passages which feel almost improvisatory. And then there is a glittering clarity and multi-layered textures coupled with a gorgeously warm, yet transparent piano sound. This album is a wonderful introduction to the imagination, originality and genius of William Baines, brilliantly illuminated by Duncan Honeybourne’s compelling performance.

This notable CD explores the piano and vocal music of Yorkshire-born composer William Baines. Several of the pieces are receiving their first recording. For much of the background to my review, I am beholden to the outstanding liner notes, and to Roger Carpenter’s seminal Goodnight to Flamboro’: The Life and Music of William Baines (Triad Press, 1977).

The recital begins with Baines’s most “popular” piano work, Paradise Gardens. The composer wrote: “there was a lovely view, overlooking the gardens of the Station Hotel [in York]. You looked through thick green foliage on to the grounds, which were beautifully laid out with flowers – and in the centre a little fountain was playing. A perfect blue sky, and the sun shining low – made indeed a grand picture.” The piece he began just a few days later is a major tone poem for piano. Here is a subtle balance of impressionism and a more romantic musical language. (Sadly, much of the Paradise Gardens has been turned into a car park.)

The score of The Naïad is prefaced by John Keats’s lines which evoke a “bowery nook” in Elysium with “Nymphs in woods and fountains”. The muse for The Naïad was Ravel’s Ondine from Gaspard de la nuit. Roger Carpenter insists that it is the hardest of Baines’s works to interpret. He notes the “quality of restless longing and sadness underlying ‘the bubbling swirl of tiny waterfalls,’ ‘the soft undertones of the shallow rivulet’ and the ‘rush of miniature torrents.’”

The four numbers of Silverpoints have a definite whiff of the Orient about them, a least as far as artists who had never travelled there would have imagined. Labyrinth conjures a “deep sea cave” which could be as easily below Flamborough Head, East Riding as on a secluded island in the China Sea. It is easy to hear echoes of Debussy’s La Cathédrale engloutie in these pages. Water Pearls is a scherzo, which, to quote the contemporary pianist and teacher Frederick Dawson, has “the flash and glitter of falling water”. We are securely in East Asia with The Burning Joss Stick; its lugubrious progress suggests the rising of incense in some temple hidden deep in the forest. Floralia, is classical in its stimulus, euphoric and lush in effect. It capturs well the image of children celebrating the Roman goddess of flowers in high Maytime.

Tides is one of Baines’s better known piano pieces. It was the last work that he saw through to publication, by Elkin in September 1922. It presents two dramatic tone poems. The Lone Wreck uses a minimum amount of material to create its effect: “rolling arpeggios”, “booming pedal” and “plaintive melody”. The score is prefaced by an evocative, but unattributed, quotation: “In the hidden beach the deep sea rolls around the lonely wreck…” Whether it was inspired by Baines’s trips by bicycle from York to Flamborough Head is a moot point. Goodnight to Flamboro’ certainly owes its existence to the Yorkshire Coast. Baines’s diary entry for 1 July 1920 says everything one needs to know: “Tonight I have written a lovely ‘mind’s eye impression’. I got the idea from Colin Hunter’s Goodnight to Skye [a painting now held at Glasgow Art Gallery] – only I have written mine to my beloved Flamboro’ – instead of Skye – and I call this piece Goodnight to Flamboro’. The waves persistently roll on the rocks and in the caves… a beautiful ecstatic sorrow surrounds everything about…only the sea can give that feeling. The last chords are a dream.”

The track that first caught my eye was The Island of the Fay. It was finished on 27 July 1919 but the following month Baines orchestrated it. Both versions have been recorded before, by Alan Cuckston (review), and by the Kensington Symphony Orchestra and Leslie Head. The latter can be heard in the Internet Archive, along with its companion Thought Drift.

In its melancholy mood, The Island of the Fay has been likened to Frank Bridge’s There is a Willow grows aslant a Brook. It is dark and ominous music at first, and then a slightly warmer theme builds to a large climax before returning to the deep gloom. The piece is based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, where the narrator is exploring alone. He stumbles across a mysterious island in a river inhabited by fairies, which is sometimes seen in the shadows and at others in the sunlight. The Fay pass from life to death, and vice versa. Baines has created the correct atmosphere for this tone poem.

Pictures of Light include the character piece Pool-Lights. Honeybourne considers that it has “a spareness of aesthetic and a transcendental lucidity of utterance”. There is little here of warm romanticism or impressionism: a frozen landscape is depicted. The first Picture uses an unsettlingly repetitive ostinato in the right hand to suggest Drift-Light, whilst Bursting Flames is supercharged, almost atonal in impact, and with some dissonance. The exoticism of the suite sounds well as a group. They were collected by Frederick Dawson posthumously, and published by Elkin in 1927.

The liner notes explain that the Eight Preludes were constructed/realised by the pianist Robert Keys. The original holographs typically lacked performance directions. Honeybourne says that he “was delighted and fascinated to recognise a strong family likeness in the colouristic tints, intervallic shifts, lyrical shapes and pianistic layout…found in these intriguing pieces.” There is definite enchantment here, and not only in the evocative titles. Ebbing Tide is immediately appealing, with its “meandering melody” supported by a gently rocking accompaniment. Here and there some wayward notes creep in to give a little frisson and shiver. Shade Imagery is uneasy with its progress of rising arpeggios. We can allow our imaginations to supply the plot of the gentle A Fairy Story.Wind Sprites is like thistledown, blown into the night. The short Prelude in C presents an interesting study of a repeated figuration. Lullaby is certainly not restful, except in the final bars. The final Prelude, given the title Eroica by Robert Keys, is a study in octaves. Along with the first, Prelude in G, it exudes romanticism and strength.

The Five Songs are new to me. They explore the wide-ranging extent of Baines’s literary reading. Roger Carpenter cites them as a group in the catalogue section of his monograph. They were not published in Baines’s lifetime but have been issued by Tim Brooke in recent years. The opening number sets Fountains by the Georgian poet and dramatist James Elroy Flecker. It conjures still water rather than splashing fountains, and has a gentle and reflective mood. The American poet John Banister Tabb’s Fern Song is played “Delicatissimo, like liquid pearls”. It is another watery song, this time rain and dew. By the Sea, setting a text by Christina Rossetti, evokes the ocean “fretting against the shore”. It has a more straightforward vocal line and piano part. The most profound setting is The Vigil by Sappho. It tells the age-old tale of a woman awaiting her lover. Carpenter has noted “the aching longing of the words is conveyed in a vocal line of hesitant disjointed phrases and a keyless accompaniment of poignant beauty.” Morning, to a poem by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, is the most dramatic of the set. Yet even here, after a marching theme in the piano, and a vocal line that is “delirious with songs”, the music just evaporates like a will o’ the wisp in the final bars.

I had not heard Robin Walker’s At the Grave of William Baines before. It having been composed to celebrate the centenary of Baines’s birth. I wondered what I was about to hear. I imagined it would be a kind of well-meaning pastiche. I was wrong. Walker has created an entirely legitimate work that not only honours Baines’s achievement but adds considerable interest and a unique musical experience. He could have written a melancholy piece, but the result is celebratory. Walker says that “the present piece [is] compelled forward by the concerted forces of exaltation and tragedy towards a conclusion that recognises suffering for the beauty and miracle it is.” One hears bell chiming, not tolling. There is something of the subject’s exoticism and even romanticism in these pages, but it is celebrated with latter-day freshness. The exceptional Yorkshire illustrator and author Richard Bell has summed up ideally this commemoration on his blog: “There’s so much of Baines in there, but seen afresh through Walker’s imagination, with no hint of pastiche or nostalgia. I find myself thinking that this could be what Baines would have written himself, had he lived.” At the Grave of William Baines makes an essential pairing in any recital of the subject’s music.

I was impressed by the booklet. It contains an interesting introduction by Robin Walker, and the pianist’s detailed programme notes on Baines’s piano works. The comments on the Five Songs by Gordon Pullin include the texts. Finally, Walker writes about his At the Grave of William Baines. The booklet is illustrated with photographs of the performers and Richard Bell’s two evocative line drawings of Flamborough Head.

This is a very fine new release of music by William Baines (and Robin Walker). It is perfectly executed by all concerned. I hope that Duncan Honeybourne will dig deeper into the surviving manuscripts located at the British Library, and record more piano works from Baines’s pen. There is, I understand, an unpublished Sonata …

The first encounter you might have had with the piano music of William Baines (1899-1922) was on a 1995 CD, now on Priory, played by Eric Parkin. In 1999 I purchased the new BMS monograph by Roger Carpenter entitled Goodnight to Flamboro’. It was apt that I found it in a music shop in York, as Baines was a Yorkshireman, born at Horbury near Wakefield. Also, that very day, I had visited Nun Appleton Priory. A photo on the front cover of the CD booklet shows Baines sitting on the steps of the house I had visited.

I started to listen to Duncan Honeybourne’s impassioned rendition of Paradise Gardens on the exact date 100 years on from Baines’ death from tuberculosis on 6th November 1922. Listening to works like Tides, which includes the piece which gave Carpenter the title of his book, and also Pictures of Light, and especially Pool-Lights, which is the third movement of that set (and Baines last composition) one agrees with Duncan Honeybourne, in his excellent and detailed booklet notes, when he beautifully describes the music as an ‘icy musical landscape’. Mr Honeybourne’s playing on this disc is an absolute revelation.

So, one must ask the question, what would such an original musical mind have achieved had he lived even for another decade?

If you have the Eric Parkin disc then this new one can be seen as entirely complementary as only Paradise Gardens, Tides and The Naiad are repeated by Honeybourne, and in addition this new disc includes a lengthy homage to Baines by Robin Walker in a brilliant and dramatic essay entitled At the Grave of William Baines. The booklet has a picture of Walker by Baines’s grave at Horbury, and he also contributes a biographical essay.

Baines described himself as ‘like Debussy’ and by that I suspect he meant that he was creating an emotional image in sound of a landscape or picture, although he went on ‘I have learned more from the wind than from a master’. What is striking is that Baines’s harmonic language is even more unsettled and searching than the Frenchman’s, and at times Scriabin will come to mind. Finding a tonal centre is not always easy especially the later pieces.

The Five Songs, performed with sensitivity and clarity by Gordon Pullin, are quite a find and are settings of a wide variety of poets including Sappho. This then is a disc which anyone with an interest in British music should snap up.

There are some composers that have been so obscured by their times and currents that their music can come as a kind of great surprise, a most pleasant shock. That to me is the case with William Baines (1899-1922), a composer I have never crossed paths with before, but gladly do so now with the recent album Pictures of Light (Divine Art dda 26234). It is nicely performed by pianist Duncan Honeybourne and a cameo appearance by tenor Gordon Pullin with the “Five Songs.” We get a further interaction of the impact of the composer, a nice view with the concluding homage piano work by Robin Walker (b. 1953), an additional finely turned and exciting work “At the Grave of William Baines.” 

What we hear in the main (in the first 20 tracks) from Baines is some wonderfully wrought solo piano music that straddles the gap between Late Romantic expressive heights and Early-Modern torrents of somewhat edgy dramatics. So there is  some relationship (you might note like I have) with Sorabji, Scriabin, Alkan, Debussy and Ravel, etc. Throughout the nicely performed totality is both an affiliation as I suggest but also a very original and bold brush of beautiful exceptionality, something saddened by the realization of how much more the composer would have been had he lived past the tragically brief, twenty-something-odd years of his actual lifetime.

I can say here without the slightest hesitation that this is a rather indispensable offering, exceptional piano music of its time by one we should now re-remember and rejoice to hear no matter how brief his lifespan, you who value the golden ages of pianism! This is a heretofore unknown but no less welcome addition to what we celebrate. Bravo.