‘The Seasons’ by Doug Thomas

By The Cross-Eyed Pianist | January 8, 2019

Interesting things come from online connections – and this is one of the nicest projects I’ve been involved in recently, thanks to a Twitter/Facebook connection with composer Doug Thomas.

The Seasons is Doug’s hommage to Tchaikovsky’s suite of 12 piano miniatures which bears the same name, a year-long collaborative project with 12 pianists from around the world. Doug composed 12 short pieces, 1 for each pianist participating in the project. Each pianist recorded his/her piece and these recordings were released month by month via Doug’s SoundCloud and social media. Now all 12 pieces have been collated into an album, available via SoundCloud and Spotify (in a fully mixed/engineered version).

The music is generally minimalist in style, and each piece is different – like Tchaikovsky’s Season’s, Doug captures the character of each month, from the solemn frozen majesty of January to the reawakening of nature after winter (March – which Doug composed for me), the sunny playfulness of July and the melancholy nostalgia of December at the close of the year.

Other pianists participating in the project include Christina McMaster, Clio Monterey and Simeon Walker – all of whom have, coincidentally, appeared in my Meet the Artist series. This for me is a mark of the wonderful connectivity that social media affords us, and that those of us in the piano world have many overlapping networks and circles within circles.

It is very special to have a work composed especially for one and I felt a huge responsibility towards the composer and his music to interpret the work in a way which I hoped would fit with his original vision for the work, which conveys the excitement of nature bursting into life again after the winter chill.

Listen to the album on Spotify

In addition to the album, the sheet music for the complete project is also available here.

Andrew James Johnson’s ‘The Piano and The Soul’ mixtape

By The Cross-Eyed Pianist | December 16, 2018

A selection of piano music that touches your soul, beyond any other….

Andrew James Johnson is a Composer and Pianist from the UK renowned for his melodically inspired and elegantly crafted solo piano works. His music speaks directly to the heart, conveying a range of emotions from the first few bars. As the music flows from his fingertips, Andrew caresses the piano with his yearning phrases alongside a natural virtuosity that takes the listener on a transcendent musical journey.

andrewjamesjohnson.co.uk

Andrew James Johnson’s ‘The Piano and The Soul’ mixtape

By The Cross-Eyed Pianist | December 16, 2018

A selection of piano music that touches your soul, beyond any other….

andrewjamesjohnson.co.uk

A palpable presence: Igor Levit’s ‘Life’

By The Cross-Eyed Pianist | October 12, 2018

life_cover_750x750_88985424452_en This could be the best thing I’ve heard this year. A bold claim, I know, but listening to Igor Levit’s new recording Life (Sony Classical) literally stopped me in my tracks….

With four recordings already and glowing reviews wherever he plays, this latest offering – his first in three years – from German-Russian pianist Igor Levit was eagerly awaited. It’s very different from his previous recordings which have focussed on “big” serious works (the Diabelli and Goldberg Variations, Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated, late Beethoven Sonatas). ‘Life’ is a classical concept album, a very personal existential reflection on life and death, prompted by the death of a close friend. Music has proven therapeutic benefits and Levit finds a way through his grief , though perhaps not a sense of closure, in a series of solemn, valedictory and deeply thoughtful works by Busoni, Bach/Busoni, Schumann, Rzewski, Wagner/Liszt and Bill Evans. There’s no flashiness here, no glittering runs or vertiginous virtuosity – that would be inappropriate. Instead we have a continuous meditative flow of music from Busoni’s Fantasie after J S Bach through the fleeting poignancy of Schumann’s Geister (‘Ghost’) Variations to Bill Evans’ Peace Piece, an unusual but entirely fitting work with which to close this wondrous recording.

Every note is considered, measured, poised but never mannered: there’s none of the pedantry other “intellectual” pianists tend towards in performance. This playing epitomises the maxim “through discipline comes freedom” – something I felt very strongly in Levit’s mesmerisingly intense concert of Beethoven’s last three sonatas at Wigmore hall last year. You could have cut the atmosphere – one of concentrated collective listening – with a knife, and Levit achieves the same palpable sense of presence, intimacy and profound communication on this recording. It’s as if you’re in the room with him, quietly observing, listening, almost without breathing, while he plays. He finds incredible delicacy in the quietest reaches of the dynamic range – technically hard to achieve and emotionally wrought – and the entire album has a compelling processional quality, felt most strongly (for me) in Liszt’s transcription of Wagner’s Solemn March to the Holy Grail from Parsifal, to which Levit brings immense control and a hushed, prayer-like quality to the magisterial architecture of this work. The Fantasia and Fugue on the Chorale ‘Ad nos, ad salutarum undum’, the longest work on this 2-disc recording, is another glowing transcription, also by Liszt, demonstrating that music, like life, is subject to change. Isolde’s passionate Liebstod and Busoni’s poignant Berceuse pave the way for the final work on the recording.

Bill Evans’ ‘Peace Piece’ matches the solemnity and intensity of the rest of album but in its ostinato bass and delicate treble filigrees, so redolent of Chopin’s tender Berceuse, there is, finally, a sense of consolation. It’s beautifully played by Levit, as are all the pieces on this recording.

Highly recommended

The music is there to be played…..

By The Cross-Eyed Pianist | July 23, 2018

A recent conversation with a pianist friend of mine (who, incidentally, is probably the best advocate I know for amateur pianism, such is her devotion to the piano and its repertoire), during which my friend described a festival adjudicator who implied that she should not be playing works like a Chopin Ballade, reminded me of an attitude which exists, and persists, amongst some professional musicians (and indeed a few amateurs too) and teachers that certain repertoire is for professional or advanced pianists only. This is of course rubbish: no repertoire should be considered “off limits” or the exclusive preserve of the professional. The music was written to be played, whether in the privacy of one’s home or to a full house at Carnegie Hall

Prior to the nineteenth century, most music was written for and performed in the court or the church but there was also instructional music (for example by JS and CPE Bach) to help the keyboard player improve their understanding of technique etc (later taken up in the nineteenth century by Chopin, for example, in his Études). J S Bach’s Clavier Übung (literally ‘Keyboard Practice’) includes the six keyboard Partitas, the Italian Concerto and Overture in the French Style, and the Goldberg Variations – all wonderful works which regularly appear in concerts and are enjoyed by pianists the world over. All these works were written to be played at home as part of one’s keyboard study, and I cannot imagine Bach would consider his splendid music to be “off limits” to amateur players – nor Chopin either!

By the nineteenth century, the piano had improved significantly and by the mid-nineteenth century advanced manufacturing techniques meant pianos could be produced more quickly and cheaply. The instrument became an important member of the household and composers responded to its popularity by writing smaller scale works, “albumblatt”, miniatures and duets, specifically aimed at the “at home” or amateur player. Many of these works are now staples of concert programmes.

As pianists we are terribly spoilt for choice. We have a vast repertoire to explore, and today composers continue to add to that repertoire, which means we also have brand new music to explore and play. And in my experience, composers are pleased if you actively seek out their music to play (and preferably purchase it too). OK, so it’s not as prestigious as having it premiered by a leading artist, but that the music is being played and perhaps shared with others via piano clubs, self-organised recitals etc means the music is getting out there.

Don’t let anyone tell you you’re “not worthy” of this fantastic repertoire, that you shouldn’t attempt a Chopin Ballade, a late Beethoven or Schubert Sonata, Liszt’s Dante Sonata or Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit.

The music is there to be played – just go and bloody well play it!

A Moving Story

By The Cross-Eyed Pianist | July 18, 2018

As friends and followers of this blog probably know by now, I moved to Dorset at the end of May after 40 years living near or in London. We spent six weeks in temporary accommodation with my mother-in-law and our cat Monty, with just some basic furniture and effects to enable us to function and continue to work day to day (my husband runs his own business, working from home). Meanwhile, the bulk of our furniture and belongings went into storage. Three days after we moved into our new home on the island of Portland, near Weymouth, a large Pickfords van arrived to deliver our effects and left us a few hours later surrounded by packing boxes. The efficiency of Pickfords’ packing service ensured that every box was clearly marked, though some were rather ambiguous, such as “shoes and books” – which turned out to contain all the files associated with my London piano teaching practice. As I gradually unpacked, drawing our possessions out of their wrapping paper, a certain item – a book or a vase – would elicit a response or a Proustian rush of memory. Finding photos of my son as a baby and little boy were particularly poignant and special (he is now 20, living in his own flat and working as a chef at one of London’s top hotels).

It also occurred to me, as I worked my way through the boxes, that being reunited with these items, accumulated over a marriage of nearly 30 years and remembering how and why they came into our home and our joint lives, was like reacquainting myself with piano repertoire I had learnt previously. Just as I recalled why that mid-century white vase was special, so I also recalled what I liked about the repertoire and why I selected it in the first place. Some pieces go back a long way in my piano life – to when I was a teenager (Schubert’s D899 Impromptus, Mozart’s Fantasies), or when I was starting to play the piano seriously again as an adult (Bach’s Preludes and Fugues, Chopin’s Nocturnes). Others have more recent heritage – the music I learnt for my performance Diplomas or pieces played in concerts, which will always remain special because of their association with positive and enjoyable performances.

Returning to previously-learnt repertoire can be extremely satisfying – like reacquainting oneself with an old friend, while also making a new friendship. Some pieces reveal their subtleties and qualities more slowly than others and benefit from a cycle of work, rest, work, rest. A prime example for me is Mozart’s Rondo in A minor, K511, a profoundly emotional and complex work which I revisited four times and will work on again this autumn, such is the work’s appeal and breadth. Picking up a piece again after a long absence often offers new insights into that work, revealing details one may not have spotted the first time round, while time away from the music – perhaps spent listening or reading about it – helps one crystallise thoughts and form new ideas to put into practice. It can be surprisingly easy to bring previously-learnt work back into one’s fingers, and this ease is a good sign – that one learnt the work deeply in the first place.

At the time of writing, my grand piano is still in storage with a friend in London. In the meantime, I have been enjoying listening to music I’ve previously learnt while also considering new repertoire for performance later this year.

Oh, and I’ve also been enjoying the fantastic scenery on Portland…..