It’s 1942, America has entered the Second World War and Britain is full of GIs and American airmen.
The American Air Force personnel are restless and miss their homes and their music. At one such air base at Mildenhall in Suffolk, a young British female pianist called Eve Stannard entertains the troops with her piano renditions of famous standards.
Eve has a problem – the British have stopped printing sheet music because of the war effort so she has no music to enable her to play the latest standards. So Eve asks the young airmen returning to the States to ask their buddies to bring back as much sheet music as they can find from America. Over the months she builds up a huge collection of music.
The war is won, the piano lid is shut, the music is put away into a very large suitcases…..
Fast forward 53 years. It’s 1997 and Fay Peacock, whose daughter Kerenza is studying violin at the Royal Academy, is in a hospital bed waiting for an operation. In the bed next to her is…. Eve Stannard. The two get talking, realise their mutual interest in music and discuss Kerenza’s love of show tunes. However when Fay returns from her operation Eve is no longer there.
Some weeks later, a knock on the door at the Peacock home and standing outside are the suitcases full of musical treasures that Eve Stannard amassed during the war. She has gifted it to Kerenza who, busy with her studies, puts it away in an attic for several more years.
Fast forward again to 2007, when Kerenza, whose string quartet Pavao has now gained international recognition, is having a conversation with Victoria Hart and her record producer Geoff Gurd about standard catalogue and the Great American songbook. Victoria and Pavao have met through myspace, have done some concerts together and are now thinking of recording together.
On recounting the tale of Eve Stannard, Victoria and Geoff ask to take a look inside the suitcase and to their astonishment they discover several thousand pieces of sheet music. Among the collection is hundreds of unknown/little known songs by famous American composers like George Gershwin.
The team contacts Leopold Godowsky III, one of the sole surviving relatives of the Gershwin family, and are invited to visit the American Library of Congress in Washington DC to unearth some more original Gershwin manuscripts. Proper Records become interested in the story and the decision is made to record “The Lost Gershwin”.
The result is a unique take on songs from one of the 20th century’s greatest composers. Instead of opting for the usual big band style, the producers have gone for a more subtle and varied approach, relying on intricate arrangements and skilful playing by the quartet and their fellow musicians.
Some of the arrangements echo the jazz tinged melodic style of the composer, whilst others see Victoria Hart stray into hitherto unfamiliar territory – musicals, country music, even Vaudeville.
Gershwin lovers may well enjoy listening to the rarities on this album, most of which haven’t been recorded for a long time, if ever. At the same time Victoria and Pavao hopie to reach a whole new band of admirers who, like them, will come to appreciate the beauty and sophistication of George’s melodies.
The Lost Gershwin is available on 27th October in shops
throughout the UK (HMV, WH Smith, etc) and on-line
(www.amazon.co.uk, etc) and worldwide on iTunes....