The Chamber Music of Arnold Cooke - a four-CD collection. The Pleyel Ensemble/Mike Purton Recordings. MPR 103, MPR 105, MPR 108 and MPR 109 (2018-2020)
- Submitting institution
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Royal Northern College of Music
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 17A
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- The Carole Nash Room, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first performance
- -
- Year of first performance
- 2020
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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5 - Performance
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This four-CD set consists of a representative selection of chamber works with piano composed between 1936 and 1987, including fifteen world première recordings, of the understudied English composer Arnold Cooke (1906–2005). My accompanying booklet notes draw together new research into the music and its origins. The project, devised by me as the Artistic Director and pianist of The Pleyel Ensemble, is the first undertaking by any chamber group of such a comprehensive study of Cooke’s works. The culmination of a six-year project to explore the evolution of Cooke’s style across his long career, these recordings allow his music to be assessed within the context of his contemporaries’ outputs, offering a new lens on an important, underrepresented area of twentieth-century British chamber music. The research also reveals his connections to late-Romantic traditions and selective engagement with the European modernism of Hindemith, Bartók and Shostakovich.
My extensive archival work with Cooke’s autograph manuscripts to correct the only available, and highly inaccurate, editions of seven of the fifteen works has shed new light on Cooke’s working practices. My research has underlined his meticulous approach to composition and presentation as a composer-performer himself, and allowed us to realise these works accurately. Furthermore, my rediscovery, cataloguing and assessment of several hundred of Cooke’s autograph letters helped contextualise my study of his music, confirming his aesthetic approach and informing our realisation of rubato, vibrato and sound production.
I have directed the ensemble’s many public performances of the repertoire, including a live broadcast of the Piano Trio D31 (1941–44) on BBC Radio 3. The recordings, which have been discussed in publications as diverse as the ABC’s Limelight magazine, Musical Opinion and MusicWeb International, enjoy international distribution via Naxos and digital platforms such as Spotify, and thus are widely disseminating the results of my research.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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