TROIS PIÈCES NÈGRES (score & parts)

Although not widely known today, the English composer, conductor and critic Constant Lambert (1905-1951) was regarded as one of the most gifted musicians of his generation. He was a major figure in the ballet world. Indeed, alongside Ninette de Valois and Frederick Ashton, he founded what was to become the Royal Ballet.

Much of his work was influenced by jazz, especially the music of Duke Ellington, and he enjoyed considerable success, aged 22, with his jazz-inflected piano-concerto-choral-fantasy The Rio Grande. Trois pièces nègres (pour les touches blanches) for piano duet was written in 1949 in London and Sicily. The title translates as ‘Three black pieces (for the white keys)’. The word ‘nègre’ in this context refers to the Afro-Caribbean / Latin-American flavours Lambert incorporates into the piece. It is also a play on words, for here we have ‘black’ pieces, written entirely for the white notes of the piano. To adhere to C major so rigidly, yet presenting such a colourful, jazz-accented tour-de-force, demonstrates Lambert’s considerable compositional skill.

There are three movements. The upbeat outer movements (‘Aubade’ and the oddly named ‘Nocturne’ in 5/4) have striking, imaginative, jazz-like rhythmic pulses. The central movement – ‘Siesta’ – is gorgeously slow and forlorn, perhaps reminiscent of Poulenc.

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