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Guest post by Howard Smith

4 pianists, 4 passions

Two hours of piano music, accompanied by GenAI art projection and a smattering of poetry. Performers: Elena Toponogova, Ophelia Gordon, Howard Smith and Matthew Baker Music by Frank Bridge, Nikolai Medtner, Erik Satie, Francis Poulenc, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel & Nikolai Kapustin.

What’s behind our forthcoming event Personal Passions? Two years ago I had completed study of several works by Erik Satie, specifically, the Gnossiennes, the Gymnopedies and the Ogives. I had also  ‘composed’ a series of short sequences to sit between the pieces. Each of these rests on the tritone from the preceding key and acts to ‘reset the ear’ prior to the following piece. This helps clarify the transition. I felt this was necessary because the beguiling pieces are similar in character. I call each of these brief improvisations an ‘hiatus’. The concept was performed in fragments at various piano meetup groups. On April 5th this year, at October Gallery, I shall perform the full sequence and will be joined by Elena Toponogova, Ophelia Gordon and Matt Baker – three wonderful pianists and friends. We shall each play for around 30 minutes.

Elena Toponogova will play ‘Forgotten Melodies’ by Frank Bridge and Nikolai Medtner.

Matthew Baker will surround us with ‘Impressionism’, playing the music of Francis Poulenc, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

Ophelia Gordon will introduce her forthcoming CD: KAPUSTIN – Between The Lines, to be released on the Divine Arts label later this year. Ophelia will play 30 minutes of the CD. 

To add to the event, and based on my experience in the IT industry with GenAI (Generative Artificial Intelligence), we will be projecting sequences of images to support each of the four segments of the concert. Each has been themed around our ‘Passions’. The October Gallery space is ideal for this with its projection system and lighting.

We look forward to welcoming you to this unique venue. If successful, we hope the 4×4 format will be liked and can be repeated for other artists – both professionals and advanced amateurs from active piano circles in and around London, over the coming years. No promises but watch this space!

Event details:

Saturday 5th April 2025 at October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester St, Bloomsbury, London, WC1N 3AL

Doors 7pm, Performances 7:30 until 10pm, 20 minute interval

Tickets £19. Book tickets at: https://billetto.co.uk/e/personal-passions-october-gallery-london-tickets-1098829

Reviews:

‘Her performance was mesmerizing!’

‘Serious, deep and rarely-performed pieces played with understanding and verve’

‘Poetic playing which draws the audience into her sound world’

‘Her captivating performance motivated me to aspire to her level. Having been a keen pianist myself in the past, I felt inspired to dive in and play the instrument again’

Programme

Satie, Erik – Gnossiennes: nos. 1 – 3
Satie, Erik – Ogive no. 1
Satie, Erik – Gymnopédies: nos. 1 – 3

Bridge, Frank – 3 Sketches, H.68
Medtner, Nikolay – Fairy Tale, Op.26 no.3

– Interval –

Poulenc, Francis – 3 Novelettes, FP 47/173
Poulenc, Francis – 8 Nocturnes, FP 56
Debussy, Claude – Ballade
Debussy, Claude – Suite Bergamasque: III, Clair de lune
Ravel, Maurice – Sonatine

Kapustin, Nikolai – programme to include the Concert Etudes, Op.40

Founded in 1979, October Gallery is a charitable trust which is supported by rental of the Gallery’s unique facilities, grants from various funding bodies and the active support of dedicated artists, musicians, writers and many friends from around the world. The Gallery promotes contemporary art from around the planet, as well as maintaining a cultural hub in central London for poets, artists, intellectuals, and hosts talks, performances and seminars.

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Guest post by Dakota Gale, the latest article in his series aimed at adult amateur pianists

Not gonna lie: I had no idea what to write for this month’s Notes from the Keyboard.

Why? Well, honestly, for a lot of December and much of January, my enthusiasm for piano was lower than a gopher’s interest in sunbathing. 

Not that I wasn’t still playing consistently. I was, if less each day. I just didn’t feel that spark, the deep joy that I usually get from sitting down and banging on lovingly caressing the black and white keys.

Spoiler alert: I’m feeling much better now, back in the piano groove.

What changed?

Simple: my repertoire.

At the beginning of December, before a 6-week winter break from lessons, my teacher recommended – ok, convinced me – that it was time to learn a fugue. Specifically, Bach’s Cm Fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier. 

I’d managed to mostly avoid Bach’s work, if only because I’m hard-headed and bring my own pieces to my teacher for study. (He does choose pieces for me, just not that often. The recent Beethoven sonata I wrote about, for one.)

Anyway, The F**kin’ Fugue. Out of the gate, I enjoyed it. Finding the theme, the left and right hand conversation, the different voicing. I dug the intellectual challenge.

Then… I stagnated with it. But I wanted to play it and knew it was good for my hand independence, among other things. My future piano self would be so.damn.grateful. I must persevere!

I’ve done this before, but (wisely) realized when I needed to back off and just enjoy myself. This time, I pushed too long and started skipping my morning piano session, only sitting down for a lackluster few minutes in the evening.

We all know what happens when you push the day’s exercise or homework or piano to the evening. Quality suffers and dogs yowl forlornly at the sky, that’s what!

For me, the former for sure happened, and I’m quite sure our elderly cat eyed me with disdain a few times too. That was enough: I realized I was in a slump and clawed my way out of the piano slump. 

You know what I did instead of the dang fugue? I went back to the repertoire I love. Chopin. Alexis Ffrench. I retackled a samba version of Happy Birthday. I even played the much-maligned LUDOVICO EINAUDI! (I’ve written about him before.)

My energy changed overnight. Revisiting older works and fun, lighter new pieces reinvigorated me. And it drove home a big reminder:

I’m an amateur. I’m doing this FOR FUN. I don’t have to learn anything on a deadline. That means it can be – should be – fun. 

We pianists know it’s a lonely pursuit filled with hours of solitude. It’s necessary to enjoy the scales, the sightreading practice, and the brain-melt of a new piece. Otherwise, this hobby isn’t happening. That’s like aspiring to run marathons, but hating the morning 5-mile jaunt!

And so I end this post, dear reader, with a reminder. If you find your interest flagging in piano (or any hobby), ask yourself “How could I make this more fun?” 

Perhaps it’s as simple as switching repertoire, or maybe it’s setting up a digital piano outside to mix things up. Playing with other people. Taking a break from the keys to strum a guitar? 

For me, the primary goal is enjoyment, personal fulfillment and being able to play Happy Birthday (samba version!) for a good friend. If I feel like digging a hole and chucking my piano deep into it, then I’m doing something wrong.

Now I just need to remember that next time I’m wrestling for too long with a difficult piece. For now, my love affair with piano continues.

Dakota Gale

When he isn’t playing piano, Dakota Gale enjoys exploring the great outdoors, learning languages and drawing. He also writes about reclaiming creativity as an adult and ditching tired personal paradigms in his newsletter, Traipsing About. He can often be spotted camping and exploring mountain bike trails around the Pacific Northwest.

Read more articles in his Notes from the Keyboard series here

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‘The World of Yesterday’ – written & performed by Sir Stephen Hough with the Bournemouth Syphony Orchestra, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth. Wednesday 26th February, Lighthouse, Poole

British pianist Sir Stephen Hough hadn’t intended to write a piano concerto. But during the dark days of the COVID pandemic, he was approached to write a score for a film about a concert pianist writing a piano concerto… With little to do but take Zoom calls, “it seemed like a wonderful way to keep me busy”, and, intrigued by the film’s plot, he began jotting down ideas.

As the world emerged from the pandemic, the film project stalled and Stephen’s concert diary began to fill up again, but he still had the sketches for the film score and, with the support of four orchestras (the Utah, Singapore and Adelaide symphonies, and the Hallé) he wrote his piano concerto ‘The World of Yesterday’. It received its world premiere with the Utah Symphony Orchestra in January 2024 and a recording made with the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder is available on the Hyperion label.

I had the pleasure of hearing Hough perform his concerto with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in a well-conceived programme called Notes of Nostalgia. Given its theme, the concerto sat perfectly between Brahms’ Third Symphony and Elgar’s Enigma Variations – all three works infused with a certain wistfulness interposed with personal reflection, warmth and wit.

Hough’s concerto takes its inspiration, in part, from Austrian author Stefan Zweig’s atmospheric memoir of the same name, which depicts Vienna and Viennese culture in the last golden days of the Habsburg Empire before Europe was torn apart by war. You can almost smell the aroma of Viennese coffee and taste the Sacher-Torte in the quieter passages of the piece.

The music is rich in nostalgia, but without the heart-tugging poignancy of Chopin, for instance: it’s a more reflective yet positive reminiscence of another time. Scored in a single movement but with distinct sections, ‘The World of Yesterday’ has a filmic quality (“something from the 1940s”, my husband commented as we left the concert hall) – you certainly hear nods to Korngold’s film scores, and it shares Korngold’s romantic sweep, but there are also references to Rachmaninov (particularly in the very glittery virtuosic solo sections), Copland, the Warsaw Concerto…but at no point do these references feel like pastiche. And if you’re familiar with Hough’s wonderful transcriptions of Rodgers and Hammerstein, you’ll find similar idioms here (I half-expected Hough to segue into the Carousel Waltz at one point). And yes, there is a waltz too – not so much a Viennese waltz but something more sultry, redolent of Bill Evans and a smoky, late-night jazz club.

Hearing the composer play his own work was like a bridge across time to another world of yesterday, a time when composers wrote piano concertos which they performed themselves: Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev all performed their own concertos. Showcasing their prowess and personality as both performer and composer, these works becoming their “calling cards” as they toured to give concerts.

The music has an almost “vintage” quality: surprisingly traditional in its direct communication with orchestra and audience, and its idioms, motifs and references to other composers (there’s not a hint of that “squeaky gate” atonality one often associates with contemporary classical music). The piano enjoys Brahmsian interactions with the orchestra and Rachmaninov-esque cadenzas, but Hough’s does break with tradition in a few significant ways. First, the concerto has a narrative title, rather than just an opus number or key, which undoubtedly guides the audience, even without a programme note. Additionally, the cadenza, traditionally heard at the end of a movement, comes very early, after an orchestral ‘prelude’. Here the piano is solo, notes and motifs sparkling in the upper register (later mirrored by the piccolo).

Above all, The World of Yesterday is a richly textured, virtuosic and joyful celebration of past influences, rather than a poignant glance back to a better time. It’s full of warmth and wit, affection and humour: it made me smile, it thoroughly uplifted.

After all, isn’t that what music should do?

‘The World of Yesterday’ is released on 28 February on the Hyperion label

Stephen Hough
Sketch of what would be Hough’s Piano Concerto (credit: Stephen Hough)

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Don’t legalise music theft!

More than 1000 musicians have come together to release a silent album protesting the UK government’s planned changes to copyright law, which will make it easier to train AI models on copyrighted work without a licence.

The album, titled Is This What We Want?, features recordings of empty studios and performance spaces, representing the impact on artists’ and music professionals’ livelihoods that is expected if the government does not change course.

Under the heavily criticised proposals, UK copyright law would be upended to benefit global tech giants. AI companies would be free to use an artist’s work to train their AI models without permission or remuneration. The government’s proposed changes would require artists to proactively ‘opt-out’ from the theft of their work – reversing the very principle of copyright law. ‘Opt-out’ models are near impossible to enforce, have yet to be proven effective anywhere else in the world, and place enormous burdens on artists, particularly emerging talent.

The album is co-written by more than 1000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, Billy Ocean, Ed O’Brien, Dan Smith, The Clash, Mystery Jets, Jamiroquai, Imogen Heap, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, Riz Ahmed, Tori Amos, Hans Zimmer, James MacMillan, Max Richter, John Rutter, The Kanneh-Masons, The King’s Singers, The Sixteen, Roderick Williams, Sarah Connolly, Nicky Spence, Ian Bostridge, and many more. The group includes recording artists, composers, conductors, singers, and producers, and features winners of Oscars, GRAMMYs and BRIT awards.

The track listing spells out a simple message: “The British government must not legalise music theft to benefit AI companies.”

In 2023, UK music contributed a record £7.6 billion to the economy with exports of UK music reaching £4.6 billion. Under proposed changes to UK copyright law, the government risks diminishing music’s proven economic success, extinguishing jobs in the music industry and undermining Britain’s global soft-power advantage.

Ed Newton-Rex, the organiser of the album, said: “The government’s proposal would hand the life’s work of the country’s musicians to AI companies, for free, letting those companies exploit musicians’ work to outcompete them. It is a plan that would not only be disastrous for musicians, but that is totally unnecessary: the UK can be leaders in AI without throwing our world-leading creative industries under the bus. This album shows that, however the government tries to justify it, musicians themselves are united in their thorough condemnation of this ill-thought-through plan.”

Kate Bush, one of the artists involved in the album said: “In the music of the future, will our voices go unheard?”

Composer, pianist and producer Max Richter, one of the artists involved in the album, said: “The government’s proposals would impoverish creators, favouring those automating creativity over the people who compose our music, write our literature, paint our art.”

Singer-songwriter Naomi Kimpenu, one of the artists involved in the album, said: “I fear that we will become the last generation of artists that can build careers in UK music. We cannot be abandoned by the government and have our work stolen for the profit of Big Tech. These proposals will shatter the prospects of so many emerging artists in the UK. If AI steals the rewards of creativity, it destroys that creativity. The government’s plan would be a dystopian future no one voted for, and we must choose a different path.”

All profits from the album will be donated to the musicians’ charity Help Musicians. The full list of musicians and groups involved can be seen at
https://www.isthiswhatwewant.com/ which will be live from the time of album launch.

[Source: press release]

#IsThisWhatWeWant?

Help raise awareness by sharing the album and its message with friends and colleagues, and around your network. Use the hashtage #IsThisWhatWeWant? when sharing on social media.

Write to your MP to protest the government’s planned changes to copyright law.

isthiswhatwewant.com