By Gilbert French
American Record Guide
01-Dec-2000
"Joan Trimble, an Irish composer who died in Dublin from pancreatic cancer on August 13 at the age of 85 just as I was finishing this review, gives Percy Grainger more than run for his money. And the album is just the ticket the traditionalists who feel the need for a fresh, creative, superbly crafted sound in their lives.
"Almost all of this music, is folk-inspired. Perhaps I'm just Percy Graingered out at the moment, but Trimble strikes me as even more inventive in her modulations and harmonic progressions. Underneath it is a vivaciousness that's infectious but not overbearing. She calls attention to the music, not to the cleverness-or, as the liner notes put it so well, 'She believed in letting the tune speak for itself, enhanced by the right chord in the right place, but unimpeded by superfluous accompaniment for its own sake.' In the ditties for two pianos, Hunt and Holmes capture an extremely broad range of emotions and styles, from a toe-tapping reel in Buttermilk Point and lively but graceful hop-jig in The Humors of Carrick to the melting adagio recitative and Scotch snap of The Green Bough and the original melodies and formal structure of the three-movements Sonatina for Two Pianos. Trimble also makes brilliant use of each of the two pianos, making audible the differences between them, even though the engineers have recorded them 'two spoons in a drawer' with instruments tucked into one another, players facing each other, and no stereo separation. She fills the Phantasy Trio with soulful upward sweep and plenty of counterpoint interplay among violin, cello, and piano. The Pastorale, along with several other selections, are original tunes, but this one is a hommage to Poulenc that's such a fool-proof imitation of the Frenchman infected with Irish accent that it would have made Francis hoot with delight.
"The songs sung by Bardon are presented as a three-movement suite-fast, slow, fast. The County Mayo is a four-movement suite of songs. In both, the inventive piano work not only has a life of its own but calls attention to the singer's line."
more....
