Twelve Preludes (1959)

No.3 in A: Molto semplice

No.4 in F: Vivacissimo

No.5 in D: Adagio elegiaco

No.6 in G and F sharp: Allegro strepitoso

No.7 in B: Andante con moto e tranquillo

No.8 in E flat: Allegro non troppo

No.9 in C: Moderato e calmato

No.10 in D: Allegretto leggiero

No.11 in D flat: Sereno

No.12 in D: Allegro moderato

The piano was not a major preoccupation for William Alwyn. His own instrument was the flute and by far the largest part of his creative energy was devoted to the orchestra – above all in 200 or so film or TV scores but also in five symphonies and several other concert works. And yet, as he said “he loved the piano with an enduring love,” which he demonstrated by writing not only educational and examination pieces but also, in the second half of his career, such highly successful works as the Sonata all Toccata, the Fantasy-Waltzes and the Twelve Preludes (all of which and many others have ben recorded by Ashley Wass for a pair of discs to be released by Naxos).

The Twelve Preludes were written not long after the Third Symphony – a work which was greeted by John Ireland as the finest British work of its kind since Elgsar’s Second – and shares with it Alwyn’s recently invented version of serial technique. “I was experimenting,” he said, “with short note groups each with a strong tonal centre; a different group of notes is used for each Prelude.” If this seems unduly systamatic in theory, it is clear to the ear that, in fact, it inhibited neither the composer’s powers of expression nor his skill in creating thoroughly idiomatic and always interesting keyboard textures. To take an extreme case, No.11 is constructed on only three notes (D flat, E flat and F) but has an atmosphere which is not so much thin as poetically elusive.

So, whatever the technical thinking behind them, Alwyn’s can claim a place in the same line as Debussy’s and Rachmaninov’s among 20th century preludes. No.5, for example is based on scale of D major with one note added (a B flat as well as as B natural) and yet it is the emotional heart of the work, an elegy for the pianist Richard Farrell who had recently died in a road accident. If it calls one aspect of Rachmaninov to mind the contrastingly turbulent No.6 recalls another. Debussy is echoed perhaps by the pentatonic harmonies of No.7, the melodic personality of No.8 and the sonorities of No.9. At the same time all these preludes remain firmly in their own sound world, not least the triumphantly conclusive No.12.