Percy Turnbull (1902-76) is not a name you often encounter outside his native Great Britain. One still hopes this disc will inspire pianists looking for conservative yet attractive, idiomatic, and effective repertoire beyond the usual suspects who linger on the beaten track. Turnbull’s harmonic language takes its cue from Vaughan Williams, Holst, and Ireland, all three with whom he studied, with hints of Delius and Ravel and elusive chromaticisms that Roussel and Ibert would recognize as their own. In contrast to the full-handed, elaborate pianism favored by Cyril Scott and York Bowen, Turnbull’s leaner keyboard style falls easily on the ear, in the manner of Prokofiev’s ascerbic miniatures or Mompou’s musical mood paintings in delicate pastels. You can readily hear this in multi-movement works like the Sonatina, the three Dances, and the Fantasy Suite. By contrast, the Three Winter Pieces indicate what Elgar might have concocted for the piano had he lived an extra decade or two. A Pasticcio on a theme of Mozart (his K. 94) takes Mozart’s original through the styles of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Fauré, Ravel, Delius, and Bartok. Turnbull’s impressions internalize each composer’s salient traits on a level that far transcends mere cleverness. Like his previous releases devoted to Frank Bridge and Cecile Chaminade, pianist Peter Jacobs wields authoritative, colorful performances–masterfully executed, intelligently shaped, and full of beans.
