John Tilbury: At Home: Domestic And Archive Recordings [Another Timbre]. Simon Reynell’s Another Timbre label is a worthy vessel for a commemoration of Tilbury’s 90th birthday and the sunset of his career as a pianist. As one of the pillars of Britain’s musical avant-garde for over sixty years, it is impossible to summarise his accomplishments in a manageable collection, but At Home gives a coherent and perceptive insight into Tilbury’s work from a personal perspective. The bulk of these recordings were made at Tilbury’s home between 2018, when he retired from public performance, and Spring this year; as such, the collection acts as a retrospective more than an overview. The home recordings are clean and clear, even with the faint household and seaside ambience, with a focus on recent works by friends and colleagues. Scratch Orchestra alumni predominate, as expected, but there are twists and turns over the five-plus hours in this box set.
The collection begins with Tilbury and Tania Chen playing short pieces by Machaut, arranged for two pianos by György Kurtág. It seems an unusual deviation from the otherwise almost exclusively Anglophone composers heard here, but when listening through all of this music it’s striking how much of it seems timeless, and thus placeless: one of the great achievements of this post-war generation of musicians was that they were able to break free of provincialism and regional vernacular without adhering to an imported philosophy (mostly) as a crutch. Tilbury and his peers helped to redefine what British music meant, or could mean. Kurtág’s Machaut arrangements have a similar imperative, to hear things anew without the need for a verbalised context. The recording is from 2002: in addition to the home recordings, the collection is supplemented with previously unreleased archive recordings, going back as far as 1970.
Many of the pieces are dedications. Linda Catlin Smith’s Poire was composed for Tilbury; it shares a sparse, simple elegance in its construction with the set of recent miniatures by Howard Skempton. What always gets me most about Tilbury’s playing is his sense of timing, even more than his feel for dynamic shading; it gives greater eloquence to the exposed single notes and small chords in these pieces which could otherwise appear to be trivial. Each moment is alive in its own way. (I wonder if that’s why I’m also a lot more receptive to his interpretations of Mark R. Taylor, whose Five Nocturnes are included here.) Several pieces are played on clavichord, an instrument which allows no room for niceties of touch or decay. As an instrument made primarily for personal use, Tilbury gives a formal graciousness to recent pieces by Michael Parsons and Christopher Hobbs. Taylor also contributes a piece which includes recitation, touching on another aspect of Tilbury’s work. Acting and dramatic recitation, particularly of Samuel Beckett, became part of his later performances, represented here by a 2015 reading of What Is The Word, accompanying himself with an improvisation on organ. In turn, this ties into his skill as an improviser, with solo and duet pieces with Keith Rowe, Klaus Filip and Sebastian Lexer. All three collaborations are with electronics and are particularly fine examples of the genre, for Tilbury or anyone, really. The recording with Rowe is from a concert in Leeds in 2004, with Tilbury on organ, building up layers of magnified ambient noise over impossibly low drones, the piece is literally incredible: “Noone has ever identified it as Tilbury” says Rowe, recalling the times he’s played the tape for others.
Hopefully I’ve given some idea of how comprehensive this box is, illuminating many of the various strands of his work over the decades without ever feeling as though it is reaching to cover all the points. In the booklet notes, Tilbury suggests that he leaves a lot of interpretive details to the moment itself. Listening, it’s possible to detect that spiritedness even when the music is at absolute repose. His improvisations to drawings by Morgan O’Hara, recorded on the last day of the home sessions, are particularly beautiful for their colouration and delicacy of touch. The piano reductions of Cardew’s Bun No. 2 and Feldman’s Madame Press Died Last Week At Ninety are also beguiling. I need to make special mention of two substantial pieces here. Dave Smith’s Al Contrario, recorded in 1995, is an extended contrapuntal fantasy inspired by Alkan’s excursions into G# minor. Rather than elaborate, it simplifies, turning everything into a dreamlike suspension of method and time, both routine and irrational, measured out subjectively by Tilbury’s supple phrasing of a steady tread. John Lely’s Sycamore is the longest piece in the set: a home recording of quiet contemplation, silences tinted by a veil of sustained notes, immersed in a moment outside of time, imbued with receptive stillness.
As a download-only bonus, he also plays a version of Christian Wolff’s No Security Rope on clavichord and prepared piano, and a full traversal of Skempton’s 24 Preludes and Fugues on clavichord alone. The latter is a tough sell without the piano’s warmer tones and the intonation gets wonky, but it does lay bare the craft behind Skempton’s seemingly artless music.
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