Cumnock Tryst: Steven Osborne
Trinity Church, Cumnock
ROBERT Schumann’s Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) are open to interpretation, and it was emblematic of the fascinating programme Steven Osborne debuted to open the 10th birthday edition of The Cumnock Tryst that the pianist chose to offer a brief guide to the 13 short pieces verbally before he played a note.
Whether they are simply a wistful adult view of childhood or contain a deeper psychological picture of the composer, it was an invitation to sit up and tune in to the recital this most thoughtful of players had structured.
Crucially, the set contains at least two melodies well known beyond their original context, and that set the tone: some top tunes, masterly keyboard technique and a sequence of choices that engaged the brain as well as the heart.
The earliest piece followed, Bach’s Jesu, joy of man’s desiring. It too has a rich back-story, becoming especially popular in the mid-20th century performances of Myra Hess. Here it was immediately followed by Lumen Christi, composed in 1997 by our festival host, Sir James MacMillan. His use of a liturgical Easter chant in the brief piece sounds a little like a musical box, and after we had heard a sparkling Prokofiev Prelude we returned to that idea with the Musical Snuff Box composed by Anatoly Liadov, a composer every bit as troubled as Schumann.
That lovely miniature ends like a musical box in need of winding, and Osborne followed it with a third Russian, Rachmaninov and his unmistakable flamboyant signature arrangement of Fritz Kreisler’s Liebesleid.
There ended that distinct section, before a time-shift to the sequence that followed, perhaps more eclectic superficially, but no less carefully thought-through, and clearly all close to the performer’s heart.
Beginning with keyboard studies on Scottish Folk Tunes by Osborne’s contemporary at St Mary’s Music School, James Clapperton, it visited the catalogue of Judith Weir with her 2017 piece, Chorale for Steve (remembering American composer Steve Stucky), before seamlessly moving into jazz mode.
Playing three of his own transcriptions of recordings of improvising, with a fourth as an encore, Osborne was in territory he has made his own, but here given welcome sustained exposure. Keith Jarrett, unsurprisingly, featured large, his My Song – one of his loveliest melodies – opening the sequence, and, in the encore from his Vienna Concert album, closing it.
In between Osborne “became” two more very different and distinctive jazz pianists: Bill Evans playing Gershwin’s I Loves You Porgy and Oscar Peterson doing his Art-Tatum-on-speed thing with the very early James Hanley jazz standard, Indiana.
45 years ago, when he was 53, British jazz pianist composer and band leader Stan Tracey recorded a fine album of solo piano music which he wryly entitled “Hello Old Adversary!” At the same age, Steven Osborne’s relationship with the Steinway grand is more like that between Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer – and what fabulous fun they are able to have together!
Keith Bruce
Picture by Stuart Armitt