{"id":2285,"date":"2012-03-14T06:40:08","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T11:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=2285"},"modified":"2012-03-14T06:40:08","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T11:40:08","slug":"cd-review-pianist-rosemary-tuck-fashions-80-minutes-of-celtic-bonbons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/03\/14\/cd-review-pianist-rosemary-tuck-fashions-80-minutes-of-celtic-bonbons\/","title":{"rendered":"CD Review: Pianist Rosemary Tuck whips up 80-minutes of Celtic bonbons"},"content":{"rendered":"

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ROSEMARY TUCK & RICHARD BONYNGE<\/strong>
\nWilliam Vincent Wallace, Celtic Fantasies (Naxos)<\/em><\/p>\n

This piano CD qualifies as a classical-music ode to St. Patrick’s Day (with several nods to St. Andrew), a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Irish composer William Vincent Wallace (on March 11) — and a guilty pleasure.<\/p>\n

From the opening notes of “The Yellow Hair’d Laddie,” Australian pianist Rosemary Tuck sounds like she’s having the time of her life rollicking through 20 of Wallace’s four-dozen Celtic Fantasies<\/em>, written between 1848 and the composer’s death in 1865.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The demand for sheet music exploded in the mid-19th century, as the piano became the must-have home-entertainment unit for any respectable family. Wallace, a piano and violin showman and a pioneer musical globetrotter (sometimes to earn money, sometimes to run away from debts), could improvise on a tune as well as Franz Liszt. He parlayed his flair on the concert stage into a steady supply of popularly-tuned music with which the talented amateur pianist could show off his or her chops.<\/p>\n

The Fantasies<\/em> collected here are decorated with every conceivable bit of pianistic filigree imaginable, from long, cascading runs to avalanches of arpeggios and marches of chords — but the underlying folksongs are so charming, so effortlessly rendered by Tuck, that, rather than inducing sugar shock, they are rays of sunshine on a fine, spring day.<\/p>\n

You can even forgive Wallace for blatantly pilfering the styles of others. There’s even a blatant riff on Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Chopin’s “Revolutionary” Etude<\/em> in the opening to a Fantasy on “The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls” and “Fly Not Yet.”<\/p>\n

Fellow Australian, retired opera conductor Richard Bonynge (who turns 82 this year), takes over the piano from Tuck on one track, for a nice rendering of Scots favourite, “Ye Banks and Braes.”<\/p>\n

This is not serious listening; it’s a romp, in the best possible sense. My one objection is the overly reverberant acoustic at Forde Abbey, in Somerset, where this disc was recorded.<\/p>\n

For full details on the disc, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a few more details on Wallace, check out the entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography<\/em>, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here are Tuck (at the piano) and Bonynge (on the podium) for a non-Celtic creation of Wallace’s last fall (with orchestra, the music sounds pretty cheap, unfortunately):<\/p>\n