Lennox Berkeley
Lennox Berkeley wrote music of French clarity and English reserve: lucid textures, shapely melody and a concise, tonal idiom that later absorbed serial colour without abandoning a centre. His chamber and piano works favour craft and charm over display.
His violin and piano music is cultured and approachable, from early sonatas he once set aside to a Sonatina whose finale variations sparkle and an Elegy of simple lyric grace. Unaccompanied violin pieces stay free of dryness. The Horn Trio, Op. 44, is shapely and agreeable, and the Six Preludes for piano move with deliberate poise and suppleness. Paris study with Boulanger and friendships with Ravel, Poulenc and Britten feed the writing; from the mid-1950s he sometimes folded serial ideas into still-tonal argument without losing his centre.
Lennox Berkeley is featured on the following titles
Horn Trios
A dazzling trio in horn trios by Banks, Berkeley and Brahms. Anyone who caught their Australian performances in 1998 will know how wonderfully these musicians work together.