LEON MCCAWLEY
Natural Connection: Piano music inspired by the natural world Somm SOMMCD 0680
Leon McCawley’s latest recital offers pieces inspired by the natural world. He makes some delightful connections in his choices of repertoire. We go straight from a thunderous performance of Liszt’s ‘Orage’ (from the ), for example, to a mysteriously unsettling rendition of Bartók’s : it’s as if Liszt’s storm has exhausted nature itself. A wonderfully unsentimental account of Debussy’s leads into Saint-Saëns’ (arr. Godowsky): one can imagine the swan gliding along in the very same moonlight. Grieg’s chirpy is followed by Ravel’s much more melancholy. Other great nature-lovers such as Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky are well represented, and the recital opens with an uncobwebby account of Sinding’s barnstormer , reminding us what a fantastic piece it is, despite its ubiquity. All in all, a recital of enormous pictorial charm.
