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BAGATELLES Piano Music by Bernard Hughes

Matthew Mills piano

Release date: 9th June 2023 | Divine Art Recordings (Divine Art DDX 21107)

This album presents the complete works of Bernard Hughes for solo piano, an eclectic collection covering a period of over 30 years. The oldest piece dates back to his teenage years and the most recent is a brand new suite, Partita Contrafacta, a quirky take on traditional Baroque dance forms. The rest of the music ranges from the large-scale Strettos and Striations to little occasional pieces written for the composer’s children. With such a varied range of music, there is something for everyone on this disc.

What makes this album truly special is the culmination of many years of collaboration between Hughes and Mills, who commissioned and premieres Partita Contrafacta on the disc. The two musicians have been working together for years, resulting in a deep understanding of each other’s artistic vision and an unparalleled ability to bring Hughes’ compositions to life on the piano.

Works

Song of the Walnut
Partita Contrafacta (suite in 7 movements)
Song of the Button
Bagatelles (12 movements)
Miniatures (11 movements)
Three Studies
O du Liebe meiner Liebe
Strettos and Striations
Cradle Song

Sample track:

Bernard Hughes says: “This album brings together pretty much all my music for solo piano written over the course of more than 30 years, the earliest from when I was still at school and the latest written just weeks before being recorded, in October 2022. The inspiration was my pianist and friend, Matthew Mills, who suggested the project and who has put untold hours into learning and animating the music, some of which is very straightforward, and lots of which is very much not.

And this variety is very much the point for me. As in all aspects of my compositional work, I don’t have a single piano ‘style’, but cut my cloth according to the occasion. Although there are several of techniques, textures and devices I return to over and again – as will be obvious to anyone listening straight through – there is also a huge range of approach, from music written for piano beginners up to the most virtuosic I could imagine, and from simple blink-and-you-miss-them melodies to ferocious, post-minimalist studies. In some cases, I don’t know what possessed me.”

Pianist Matthew Mills says: “I am very pleased to have done Bernard’s piano album. It’s a substantial milestone in a musical relationship that now goes back probably twenty years or so…. It really captures all facets of Bernard’s kaleidoscopic musical personality, and, having a close knowledge of the composer as well as the music, I think gives it a special resonance.

Pre-order BAGATELLES here

Bernard Hughes
Matthew Mills
Bernard Hughes’ music has been performed by ensembles including the BBC Singers and the London Mozart Players at major British venues including the Royal Albert Hall and St Paul’s Cathedral. His music has won a number of awards both in the UK and internationally and is regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in the UK. Bernard Hughes’s BBC commission Birdchant was premiered at the Proms festival in August 2021. This was the culmination of Bernard’s long relationship with the BBC Singers, which also included a major portrait concert in January 2020, leading to I Sing of Love being nominated for an Ivor Novello Composer Award. An album of Bernard Hughes’s choral music, I am the Song, performed by the BBC Singers, was released in 2016. His orchestral works for family concerts, Bernard & Isabel and The Knight Who Took All Day are frequently performed around Britain and were recorded by the Orchestra of the Swan on a release from February 2020. In 2015 he provided music for the comedy film Bill, a fantastical account of Shakespeare’s early years. A second album of choral music, Precious Things, sung by the Epiphoni Consort, was released in May 2022 and was described by Judith Weir as ‘choral music as we rarely hear it – generous, light-footed, surprising.’ Bernard lives in London where he is Composer-in-Residence at St Paul’s Girls’ School, a position he has held since 2015. He is a keen cricket fan, both as a watcher, a player and as chairman of Chiswick Cricket Club in London.

For almost three decades, Matthew Mills has enjoyed a busy and diverse freelance career as a pianist, composer, and conductor. With a repertoire encompassing music from five centuries, he has performed across the UK as a soloist, chamber musician, and accompanist, in addition to establishing a reputation as a sympathetic and creative dance accompanist.

A committed supporter of young composers and contemporary music, Matthew founded and directed a contemporary music ensemble at Royal Holloway, University of London, with whom, assisted by his own conducting students, he led workshops and performed works by student composers, as well as established twentieth-century names. He has enjoyed a long collaboration with the British composer Bernard Hughes, having given the first performance of his Bagatelles for piano and participated in the first performances of his chamber opera Dumbfounded! at the Riverside Studios, London.

Matthew studied at the Universities of Oxford and London, and at Trinity College of Music, London. His teachers have included Christopher Elton (piano), Daryl Runswick, Andrew Lovett, and Simon Holt (composition), and Gregory Rose (conducting). An award from Oxford University enabled a period of specialist study of contemporary piano repertoire with Rolf Hind, and he has appeared in masterclasses in composition with Michael Finnissy and George Benjamin, and in piano with John Lill and Rosalyn Tureck.

 

For further press information, interviews and review copies, please contact Frances Wilson

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Guest post by Rhonda Rizzo

When did I begin my love affair with the music of living composers? The moment I found Yvar Mikhashoff’s ‘Incitation to Desire’ CD of tango music for the piano. The smoky cover, the provocative title track – I was caught before I listened to a single piece. Ah, and what a collection! Tangos from multiple eras and in multiple styles. Tangos that spoke of something illicit, a smoky world of furtive late-night romance, smoky dance halls, and sensuality. These tangos represented a freedom I craved – freedom from the performance practice expectations of standard repertoire, and freedom from the years of insecurities and assumptions I brought to the music I’d been playing my whole life. Tangos broke the rules. I’d never danced a tango in my life, but I knew I needed to make music with the freedom I heard in these pieces.

I’d never worked on music by a living composer before I found this CD, but my love of this music was such that I set about tracking down the scores of my favourite pieces. Many of the tangos were unpublished, which meant I wrote to the composer to purchase a copy. Scott Pender’s tango, ‘Ms Jackson Dances for the World’ was one of these. After I received it, Scott and I kept corresponding. We became friends and have remained so for over a decade. And I loved his music – so much so that I eventually played, performed, and taught most of what he’s written for the piano. Ironically, although Chester Biscardi’s ‘Incitation to Desire’ was easier to find (it was published), I never felt I got inside it well enough to perform it publicly. It sat in my music collection, its provocative title and gorgeous writing teasing me with the promise of something I couldn’t quite grasp.

It took me over a decade to put ‘Incitation to Desire’ on a concert programme. I think this was because I needed to live more before I truly understood it. I needed to go tango dancing and feel the freedom and sensuality of the Argentine tango in my bones. I needed to perform and record Piazzolla tangos with my duo partner Molly Wheeler. And, on a deeper level, I needed to break a whole lot of rules. I needed to experience the judgment that comes from choosing to leave a marriage that had been on life-support for years. I needed to experience being swept off my feet by an unexpected grown-up romance that changed my entire life. In other words, I needed to know freedom before I could play it on the piano.

Because ‘Incitation to Desire’ is about sensuality and freedom. Much like the Argentine dance, it relies on the pianist’s ability to instinctively feel their way through the score. This piece begs to be played almost as an improvisation – just the same way that the Argentine tango is danced. It’s the pianist and the piano and the interplay of notes – sensuous, slinky, unapologetic. Chester Biscardi asks for a flexible interpretation of dynamics and tempi. I take this to mean that that this piece is best played from the senses, not the brain; instinct, not reason. In other words, you can’t play this music until you let yourself be seduced by it.

It was my No Dead Guys post about (and YouTube recording of) ‘Incitation to Desire’ that prompted Chester Biscardi to email and tell me how much he enjoyed my performance of it. That correspondence led to me learning ‘In Time’s Unfolding’ and ‘Companion Piece (for Morton Feldman)’, two pieces that, ironically, I still feel I had more of an innate understanding of than the tango that introduced me to Chester’s music. Best of all, Chet and I kept corresponding, and that correspondence blossomed into another friendship that I cherish.

I’ve never coached a student on ‘Incitation to Desire’; I’m not sure it can be done without introducing topics to a lesson that can get an instructor arrested. Furthermore, because it’s so improvisatory, the key to playing this piece well lies within each pianist’s personal experience. If they’ve lived it, they can play it. If not, no amount of musicianship or technique will bring this piece to life. I can, however, offer some general guidelines on how to navigate the score:

1) Don’t be in a hurry. This is slowly unfolding, sensuous music that can’t be forced by the pianist. All forward momentum must come from the sense that the power of the moment itself is what propels the music forward.

2) Don’t dig in too deeply on the scale passages. These are flourishes, the twirl of a tango skirt, a spin. They’re caresses, not demands.

3) Don’t start your accelerando too quickly at m. 29; you’ve got a very long way to do before you hit the end of it. This – like everything else in the piece – should feel inevitable and effortless.

4) Pay very close attention to the pedalling; it makes or breaks the piece.

5) If you’ve never danced the Argentine tango, watch some videos of it. This will explain the start/stop, slow/fast, gesture-driven nature of the score.

6) When you play it, drop all expectations of the piece, surrender to the music, and let it take you where it wants to go.

Sometimes the best way to find ourselves is to break a bunch of rules. Incitation to Desire gave me the permission I needed to follow my instincts rather than others’ expectations. It seduced me into a lifelong passion for the music of living composers. And even today, it reminds me to let moments and situation unfold naturally; it reminds me that the richest life (and my best playing) lies in releasing rigidity and entering the messy, beautiful, passionate dance of earthy, real life with my hands and heart wide open.

Rhonda (Ringering) Rizzo is a writer and a former performing and recording pianist. Her novel, The Waco Variations, was released in the summer of 2018, and her numerous articles have appeared in national and international music magazines, including Pianist Magazine, American Music Teacher, Clavier, Piano & Keyboard, and Flute Talk. A specialist in music that borrows from both classical and jazz traditions, Rizzo released four CDs, Made in America, Oregon Impressions: the Piano Music of Dave Deason, 2 to Tango: Music for Piano Duet, and A Spin on It.

She holds a BA from Walla Walla University and a MM from Boston University and is a passionate advocate of new music and living composers.

Find out more

Chester Biscardi, composer

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This atmospheric piece for solo piano, whose Afrikaans subtitle ‘Wind oor die Branders’ translates as Wind over the Waves, is by Richard Pantcheff  (b.1959). It comes from ‘Nocturnus’, a suite of six pieces written for different instruments; the final work in the suite is ‘4th December 1976’, written in memory of Benjamin Britten on the fortieth anniversary of the composer’s death. Pantcheff was mentored in composition by Benjamin Britten in the last years of Britten’s life, and his music displays a distinct affinity with Britten’s soundworld, as well as that of earlier English composers including Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi and Elizabeth Lutyens.

A prolific composer of choral, organ, chamber and instrumental works, Richard Pantcheff was trained in choral music and composition from an early age, initially as a chorister at Ripon Cathedral, and studied music at Christ Church, Oxford, under Simon Preston and Francis Grier. His music has been widely performed and praised for its originality and technical brilliance, combined with intellectual and emotional depth.

I discovered this piece through ‘De Profundis Clamavi’, a recent recording by British pianist, and friend of mine, Duncan Honeybourne. Duncan is a keen advocate of English music and a champion of lesser-known repertoire, and his recording on which ‘Nocturnus V’ appears (together with Pantcheff’s substantial Piano Sonata, of which he is dedicatee) contains no less than eight world premiere recordings.

The piece is minimalist in style. Its title ‘Nocturnus’ obviously suggests a Nocturne or night piece, and although this work makes stylistic reference to Chopin’s Nocturnes in its flowing accompaniment (almost continuous semiquavers to suggest both waves and wind), it is perhaps closer to Britten’s ‘Night Piece’ (which also appears on ‘De Profundis Clamavi’) and ‘Night’ from Holiday Diary in atmosphere, harmonic language and some of its textures. But while the middle section of Britten’s ‘Night Piece’ is unsettled, full of curious nocturnal twitterings and scurrying, Pantcheff exchanges the fluid semiquavers for a rising chordal figure in triplets which climaxes in fortississimo (fff) chords high up in the piano’s register. The effect is hymn-like and joyful. The music then subsides and pauses, before the semiquaver ‘waves’ return, now in the bass, with soft, piquant chords in the treble.

Although not particularly difficult (I would suggest this piece is around Grade 5-6 standard), the challenge for the player comes in retaining evenness in the semiquaver figures and sustaining long notes in the other register. Sparing use of the pedal will avoid muddying the sound in these sections, while the middle section requires greater projection and brightness of sound. It’s a satisfying piece to play as it offers the player plenty of scope for expression and “sound painting” to portray the music’s inspiration. 

‘Nocturnus V’ by Richard Pantcheff, played by Duncan Honeybourne

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Guest posts are invited for this series. If you would like to submit an article about repertoire you are working on or enjoy playing, please get in touch

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Who or what are the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?

My primary influences are my Catholic faith and the art and folk music of the Slovacko area of South Moravia, to which I am connected through both my parents.

Teachers: the composer Miloslav Ištvan (with whom I studied at the Janáček Academy in Brno) and the way of life of St. Francis of Assisi,

From the European music tradition: Gregorian chant, Moravian folk music, the late orchestral works of Antonín Dvořák and the late works of Leoš Janáček.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

The greatest challenge in my career has been (and continues to be) exploring the possibilities of unison technique since the end of the 1990s. It has also been a challenge to hide away and completely concentrate on composing to the best of my ability and as much as my own character, my family life and my teaching profession allow.

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working with particular musicians, singers, ensembles or orchestras?

Without a doubt a most special experience for me was my collaboration for over 30 years with the Schubert Ensemble – both with the Ensemble as a whole and with its individual members. This collaboration brought me an independence from the music life of Brno; it is a very important thing in a composer´s life to be independent of one’s position in one’s own birthplace.

I should also mention an important collaboration in Brno throughout my whole working life with the excellent percussionist Martin Opršál

Of which works are you most proud?

My proudest creative works are my three daughters, Magdalene, Veronika and Miriam, and, at one remove, my granddaughter Julia.

How would you characterise your compositional language?

It is not easy to answer this question: I try to clear a path from the mess of complexity to the order of simplicity

Tell us more about your 24 Preludes & Fugues for solo piano. What was the inspiration behind this set of pieces? Were the templates set by Bach and Chopin influential at all?

From the very start the inspiration for my Preludes and Fugues was the Bible. From the point of view of the musical form, I was influenced more by the thinking of Anton Reicha than by the counterpoint of J.S. Bach or by Chopin’s Preludes. But everything I have written is strongly connected to the classical European tradition.

During my military service in Prague (1981-2) I wrote a single Prelude and Fugue for piano, which stands alone. In 1989 William Howard asked me to write something for him. I composed two Preludes and Fugues and the cycle continued from there. The inspiration for the cycle from the very beginning was the Bible.

William Howard and Pavel Novák

Pianist William Howard has recorded the entire set. What was the experience of working with William on this music?

My collaboration with William was like my real composition degree course. Thanks to his extraordinary patience in studying and re-studying my endless corrections, I had the chance to pursue and to develop my own musical imagination – and not just in writing for piano. But certainly it also helped me to develop a new feeling for piano composition, which has continued in further piano pieces (a left hand piece for Steve Warzycki and my 6th and 7th Sonatas, both for William), and has influenced other aspects of my composing. William’s experience as both a soloist and a chamber player has given him a sense of colour and a rhythmic precision that you can admire in the recording of the Preludes and Fugues.

As a composer, how do you work?

I try to imitate the great composers of the past, composing every day, but the result is a bit different. They wrote hundreds of fantastic pieces in an extraordinarily short time. I add five bars in the morning and cross out seven bars in the afternoon every day…

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

I remember some successful premieres (my piano quintet ‘Royal Funeral Procession on Iona’ at Wigmore Hall with the whole Schubert Ensemble, the premiere of my Third Symphony for piano and strings at Dartington with William at the piano, the UK premiere of the Preludes and Fugues at St. Giles, Cripplegate in London), some great occasions, friendly audiences, nice reviews, perfect recordings, ongoing collaborations with musicians…. but then I think of Schubert and of Van Gogh and reflect that there are other ways to define success in the world of art. Maybe for the composer success is also the perfect score, the ideal piece, without the need for any response from the world around. And for a painter it is the ideal picture, regardless of how it is perceived in the artist’s lifetime.

What advice would you give to aspiring composers?

1. Write the first version of your pieces by hand. It is all too easy these days for us to become greatly estranged from our own work.

2. Rewrite pieces by classical masters (e.g. Perotinus, Bach, Webern). By following every note of their scores your imagination will develop and you will be able to compare your own solutions and your own ideas with their way of thinking. I am worried that two thousand years of well-tried and tested techniques are in danger of being lost.

3. Maintain a basic classical music education; play a string instrument and sing in a choir. When composing you can easily lose connection with live instrumental and vocal performance.

4. Do not interpret your own music! Sit in the audience and listen. Players have quite different worries from composers.

5. Sit at home and work every day. Do not organise performances of your pieces – they will come by themselves.

What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music audiences?

In the Czech Republic, programmes for bigger ensembles and for orchestras could be improved – they repeat famous pieces from famous composers again and again. They should play more early works by well-known composers (e.g. the early symphonies of Dvořák and Ives…..) and they should perform more early music on modern instruments (e.g. Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Bach…..). Glenn Gould showed us how to play this repertoire on a modern instrument in his recordings of early music.

What are your most treasured possessions?

My faith, my family, my musical gift.

Pavel Zemek Novák’s “dazzlingly original” 24 Preludes and Fugues for solo piano is now available in a newly published edition, available as a digital download from Music Haven Ltd. Find out more

Pianist William Howard has recorded the 24 Preludes and Fugues on the Champs Hill Records label