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Two from Cadenza Music Dodgson & Kodaly

Stephen Dodgson (born 1924) is a prolific, veteran composer of works for guitar, clavichord etc and his newest guitar music CD received has been a great find, with pieces from 1963 to 1994 in a range of styles.

The Ode to the Guitar is a set of small pieces, purposely not too difficult. Originality, with "not too many notes" is helped by Dodgson deliberately having not learnt to play guitar, so that he doesn't slip into its clichés.

The Midst of Life (1994) is serious & dramatic, a piece in response to the untimely death of Tim Stevenson.

The liner notes leave a few questions, e.g. who were Hector Quine and Tim Stevenson...? And was John Dodgson (front cover painting) the composer's father, maybe?

Kodaly's cello music is usefully brought together by Lionel Handy; the great solo and duo sonatas Op 4 and 7 are fairly well known, the solo cello sonata still unsurpassed.

But the Op 8 with piano was new to me, and the three together make for a fine programme. This is one of an increasing number of CDs being put down by distinguished orchestral musicians who are relatively unfamiliar as recitalists.

Both discs are well presented and excellently recorded. The Handy illustration is from a video of Handy recording this disc at Toddington Church; it's great to be able to see recording artists in action, often available on YouTube.

Both well worth exploring.

Peter Grahame Woolf