courtesy of Naxos of America
At the beginning of this month, Naxos of America announced the release by Cambria Master Recordings of Realms of Gold, a two-CD “recorded legacy” of pianist William Corbett-Jones. As of this writing, I have yet to identify a distribution site for ordering those CDs. However, Amazon.com has created a Web page for an MP3 download; and I am happy to report that the download includes the four-page booklet that accompanies the recordings.
Corbett-Jones is based here in San Francisco, where he is Professor Emeritus at San Francisco State University (SFSU). It was therefore appropriate that, in April of 2019, the SFSU presented a special Faculty Series Concert to celebrate his 90th birthday. The program was a duo recital with Professor Jassen Todorov on violin. By the time I wrote about that recital, I had covered a fair number of Corbett-Jones recitals. Indeed, unless I am mistaken, my earliest effort dates all the way back to May of 2008, when I covered a solo program performed for the Noontime Concerts™ series at Old St. Mary's Cathedral (which happened to take place on Corbett-Jones’ 79th birthday). Between that encounter and the 2019 recital, I seem to have written three articles for Examiner.com about his performances.
Realms of Gold covers a broad spectrum of music history with Johann Sebastian Bach at one end and Sergei Prokofiev at the other. While there are plenty of solo performances, there are also recordings of four-hand performances, duo performances with both violinists (Todorov and Camilla Wicks) and cellist Claude Stark. There is also an account of the first movement of Béla Bartók’s third piano concerto, performed with Laszlo Varga conducting the SFSU Orchestra. What may raise some eyebrows is that the First Viennese School is represented by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Franz Schubert, with no selections by Ludwig van Beethoven. The nineteenth century, on the other hand, is accounted for by Robert Schumann, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, and Johannes Brahms; and Corbett-Jones’ interest in the twentieth century covers a wide swath of diversity with Richard Strauss, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, and Frank Martin, as well as Bartók and Prokofiev.
Sadly, the recording technology for this impressive account of repertoire leaves much to be desired. The same can be said for the content of the booklet, which gives Strauss’ dates as 1685–1750! Nevertheless, it is not too difficult to “listen through the technical shortcomings” to appreciate the consistently perceptive interpretations that Corbett-Jones brings to each of the composers represented in this collection.
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