MUSIC WEB:
I do not recommend that this interesting anthology be heard at one sitting. Nor should listeners expect 78 minutes of music that sounds Scottish. Only MacCunn’s Six Scotch Dances, which are hugely enjoyable, robust and extremely well written for the piano have a Scotch flavour. These are not anaemic transcriptions but original pieces which may simply be dismissed as Victorian. The Kerchief Dance has a classical feel about it recalling both Mozart and Beethoven. The Plaid Dance is wonderfully evocative particularly after the drama of the Dirk Dance. The other piece of MacCunn’s is a Valse which is a slow improvisatory piece with a meandering melodic line and a curious chromaticism.

The pieces by McEwen are more substantial and of greater purport although the quality varies. The Four Sketches begin with a dark prelude which hints at the Funeral March in Chopin’s second sonata; it is a picture of brooding but eventually clearing skies. It has an ambiguous rhythm. The brief Quasi Minuetto is in 5/8 time and has a flippant, casual nonchalance. The Elegy is another uneasy piece whereas the final Humoreske is also ambiguous. And yet these pieces have a depth belied by the title of sketches.

The Sonatina is structurally satisfying and is a rewarding work with a clear and uncomplicated texture. And it is what it claims to be ... a short sonata. The central slow movement has a marvellous directness. The finalé is a scherzo of uninhibited fun. There is no overstatement, no extremes, no pomposity or grand empty gestures. It is music for music’s sake.

One can but hope that Murray McLachlan records McEwan’s Piano Sonata.

The Three Keats Preludes are evocative, Debussy-like, charming miniatures which convey their respective titles. This is followed by a more substantial triptych On Southern Hills conveying moods rather than melodic or thematic material. The music lacks depth and spends an inordinate amount of time in the upper register of the piano. I have never heard White Oxen to be so delicate. Debussy’s arabesques are behind the second piece Drifting Clouds and the overlong finalé lacks a sense of direction. The Five Vignettes from La Côte d’Argent were written in 1913 and are appealing because of their simplicity and brevity. It is attractive but rather pale music.

Mackenzie’s music has lucid thematic material and makes proper use of the most expressive register of the piano. High Spirits and Harvest Home are exciting pieces calling for a pianist with a cool head and steel fingers and McLachlan does not disappoint. Chassé aux Papillons also calls for dexterity and skill and is successfully evocative. Schumann’s Arabeske is not far away. The Trois Morceaux recalls Chopin not only in style but also in the titles: Valse, Nocturne and Ballad. Well written and instantly likeable. The Nocturne is especially fine, the gem of the disc.

A welcome disc ... very welcome indeed.
David Wright

FANFARE:
The short-lived Hamish McCunn offers perhaps the sweetest music here; his Six Scotch Dances are folk music as it was imagined in the Victorian drawing room, all idealized jollity and gather-we-round-the-fire stuff, but for his Valse the boots have been replaced by elegant evening wear. The music of Sir Alexander Mackenzie is indebted to some fairly obvious Romantic models, as McLachlan’s well-informed notes point out, but despite its lack of individuality, it’s beautifully made for the instrument and effortlessly melodic – in a word, it’s lovely. Sir John McEwen was made of tougher stuff. Though there is a clear French influence at work here, the tightness, the control of the material, even in some of the explicitly lighter pieces, make it plain that McEwen was his own man. It sounds as if McLachlan is playing a piano from around 1900 or so; that would fit the period of the music of course, although the recording gives the instrument rather too much spatial perspective. The cover….is a corny touch on an otherwise imaginative and intriguing CD. There’s nothing here to shake the soul, maybe, but plenty to divert the ear. Recommended. Martin Anderson

PENGUIN GUIDE TO COMPACT DISCS:
Mackenzie’s genre piano vignettes are derivative but hardly draw on the French impressionist school, as their inclusion in this collection might imply. Chasse aux papillons, High Spirits and the closing Harvest Home are all bravura display pieces, and Murray McLachlan throws them off in virtuoso style, although not without a feeling that a fractionally slower tempo would have been even more effective. It is the music of the other two composers on this enterprising collection that makes it worth exploring.

The subtitle of this Scottish collection is “Impressionistic piano works”, but that hardly applies to the simple miniatures by Hamish MacCunn, engaging though they are. They include one real lollipop: the Plaid Dance (track 5) which, with its gentle Scottish snaps, haunts the memory beguilingly.

Of the three composers included in this collection it is John Blackwood McEwen who is the true “Scottish Impressionist”, showing distinct French influences in his piano music. Not so much in the Four Sketches, which includes a brief 5/4 “Minuet” and a dazzling closing Humoresque, or the Sonatina which, with its Celtic flavours, is very much his own – especially the charming central Andante semplice – but in the Three Keats Preludes (each prefaced by a fragment of the poet’s verse) and even more in the atmospheric triptych, On Southern Hills, the influences of Debussy and Ravel are clear. The Five Vignettes, written while on holiday in Cap Ferrat during May 1913,are lighter, but still evocative, especially the engaging Petite chérie, while the toccata-like finale is a bustling image of a motor boat on full throttle. Excellent performances from Murray McLachlan and good recording.     *** ("Outstanding")