Dale: Piano Music (CD, Hyperion)

The monumental Piano Sonata in D minor was composed by a young Benjamin Dale while he was still a student at the Royal Academy of Music. Dale’s contemporaries included the burgeoning composer-pianists Arnold Bax and York Bowen. Dale dedicated the sonata to his close friend Bowen, who gave the premiere of the work at the Academy in February 1905 and astonished listeners with its daring structural originality and thematic integrity and its breathtaking tonal colours. The elaborate form encompasses an impressive amalgamation of the traditional slow movement, scherzo and finale into an inventive set of variations. Also featured are Dale’s charming Prunella and Night Fancies in which Dale explores impressionistic colourings. Rather aptly, the final work on the disc is the first recording of York Bowen’s Miniature Suite in C major, the ‘Humoresque’ of which is dedicated reciprocally to Dale.