Composer of the Week - Lord Berners - Berners the Humorist

Gerald Tyrwhitt-Wilson, the 14th Lord Berners, was a painter, novelist, writer of poetry and nonsense verse, and a composer of brilliant and whimsical music. He was famous for his wit and and outlandish behaviour. His eccentricities marked him out as a very English Englishman, but his music was a different matter entirely. Unlike many of his contemporaries on the British musical scene, he developed a distinctly European slant to his compositions, and came to be regarded as one of the truly original composers of the early 20th century. Donald Macleod explores Berners’s colourful life and music, starting with a work for puppet theatre, an exuberant essay in Spanish colour and a trio of waltzes which contain a passage Stravinsky described as “one of the most impudent in modern music” Du bist wie eine blume from Three Songs in the German Manner Felicity Lott (soprano) Peter Lawson (piano) ALBANY TROY 290 T1-3 Le Poisson d’Or Len Vorster (piano) MARCO POLO 8.225159 T5 Three Pieces for Orchestra Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Barry Wordsworth, conductor CAMPION CAMEO 2054 L’uomo dai baffi English Northern Philharmonia David Lloyd-Jones, conductor MARCO POLO 8.223711 T20-26 Valses Bourgeoises Peter Lawson and Alan MacLean (piano) ALBANY TROY 142 T1-3 Fantaisie Espagnole Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Barry Wordsworth, conductor CAMPION CAMEO 2054