V1: Piano Music

The English composer-pianist Freda Swain (1902–85) left behind a huge legacy of music that was largely unknown even during her own lifetime. Her compositions – hundreds of them, in a series of large boxes – found their way to the Swiss pianist Timon Altwegg, who begins his survey of her piano music with these three mighty sonatas. They are astonishing discoveries: big-boned, virtuosic pieces, full of wild energy, crossing from late Romanticism to a more modern idiom – from Rachmaninov to Bartók, so to speak – and with Bax’s fondness for Celtic seascapes and a hint of Debussyan Impressionism.

REVIEW:

Freda Swain studied composition with Charles Villiers Stanford, married New Zealand pianist and mentor Arthur Alexander, with whom she formed a successful piano duo, and devoted her life to composing, teaching, and performing. Some of her 450 compositions were performed with success, but her refusal to bend to post-war musical trends meant she fell into obscurity.

Altwegg’s recording of three sonatas and three short pieces should go a long way to reinstating this remarkable composer with a highly individual voice. The most fascinating work is the three-movement Sonata Saga that Swain left unnumbered and which Altwegg found in a box of unsorted loose pages. He has painstakingly worked it into a performance version, and it is an impressive and powerful debut work from a 22-year-old.

The gem of the collection is the Sonata No 1 in A Minor, nicknamed “The Skerries”, written in 1936 and inspired by the Scottish landscape. Altwegg gives a memorable performance. The Sonata No 2 in F Sharp Minor dates from 1950 and shows how Swain advanced in her approach to form and harmony. The short pieces are delightful.

-- Limelight