MARK BEBBINGTON
Royal Pump Rooms, Leamington Spa *****
Long a major international pianist, Mark Bebbington has equally long been a champion of British music, and this year his attention has turned naturally to former Master of the Queen’s Musick Sir Arthur Bliss, who died 50 years ago.
Bliss features largely in this year’s vibrant Leamington Music Festival, and Bebbington’s enthralling lunchtime recital last Saturday featured two works from opposite ends of the composer’s life. Masks, written in 1924, sparkles with an almost Gallic wite and clarity, surely qualifying Bliss as an honorary seventh member of Les Six, while Triptych (1970) profoundly combines both energy and regret, an epitaph of loss (including the composer’s younger brother, killed in the Great War) and, as Bebbington himself indicated, “an anthem for our own troubled times”. Both were given with the pianist’s legendary command of texture, colouring of an extreme range of dynamics, and resourcefully subtle pedalling.
Between these two came Ravel’s Sonatina, reinforcing the Gallic kinship, the bright tones of the Pump Rooms’ Fazioli piano bringing limpidity and unforced definition, Bebbington’s dynamics serving as keystones to the structure.
Bebbington’s justified love of Poulenc’s music was exemplified with a tender, poignant account of his Improvisation No, XV “Hommage a Edith Piaf”, evoking the spirit of the diminutive great chanteuse (while nodding to Granados’ Goyescas), followed by his exuberant Napoli suite. Here all the changes of mood were convincingly recreated, and Bebbington moved towards a virtuoso conclusion before soothing an enthusiastic audience with John Ireland’s similarly Gallic The Island Spell as a perfect encore.
Christopher Morley