MALCOLM ARNOLD (1921-2007): Sonata in B Minor, 2 Pieces, Variations on a Ukrainian Folk-Song, Op. 9, CONSTANT LAMBERT (1905-1951): Sonata, Elegy, Elegiac Blues, Suite in 3 Movements.

Description: Here is the only currently available recording of Arnold's 1942 12-minute sonata whose first movement is angular and bipartite, followed by a brief slow movement with hints of jazz and a comedic finale with echoes of Prokofiev. The latter is also a presence in the more ambitious 1944 Variations, along with Shostakovich. Oddly, this is still only the second recording available of Lambert's much longer sonata (1929) with its original synthesis of jazz, other popular music and contemporary French music, all of which are also present in the 1925 suite. A consistently interesting look at young British composers reacting to popular and other classical currents, in a genre with which neither was associated, both having abandoned solo piano composition before their full maturity. Mark Bebbington (piano).