Prima Facie Records

The Complete Piano Works of John McCabe Volume 1 (PFCD054) £12.50

Jane Ford - piano

"Roll on successive volumes!" Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone
"Jane Ford’s playing of what remains unfamiliar music even in Britain is first-rate. With superb sound from Prima Facie this is a wonderful start to the series." KlassiskMusikk magasin
"A hugely rewarding disc, the music is at once challenging yet appealing." British Music Society
"[Ford's] performances and the quality of the recording are in the highest class throughout." Musical Opinion
"Jane Ford plays all the music with engaging and lively intelligence. The recording brings out the neo-classical clarity of McCabe's pieces, with beautifully realised textures and lively rhythms. [..] this new survey should prove invaluable in illuminating all areas of McCabe's keyboard output, with pianist Jane Ford providing a lively, modern voice." Planet Hugill
"This is a wonderful introduction to the listener of McCabe’s piano writing... I look forward to Ms. Ford’s next disc of more of McCabe’s piano works." John Dressler, British Music Society Journal.

Three Impromptus for Piano (1959): i
Three Impromptus for Piano (1959): ii
Three Impromptus for Piano (1959): iii
Five Bagatelles for Piano (1964) Capriccio
Five Bagatelles for Piano (1964) Aria
Five Bagatelles for Piano (1964) Elegia
Five Bagatelles for Piano (1964) Toccata
Five Bagatelles for Piano (1964) Notturno
Paraphrase on 'Mary, Queen of Scots' (Study No 5) (1979) Prelude
Paraphrase on 'Mary, Queen of Scots' (Study No 5) (1979) Fugue
Afternoons And Afterwards (1981) Swans at Stratford
Afternoons And Afterwards (1981) On the beach
Afternoons And Afterwards (1981) Champagne Waltz
Afternoons And Afterwards (1981) Sports car
Afternoons And Afterwards (1981) A game of darts
Afternoons And Afterwards (1981) Forlane
Afternoons And Afterwards (1981) The artful dodger
Lamentation Rag (1982)
Snowfall in Winter (Study No. 9 Homage à Debussy) (2003)
Tunstall Chimes (Study No. 10 Homage à Ravel) (2004)
Epithalamium (Study No. 11 Homage to Mussorgsky) (2006)
Berceuse (2011)

John McCabe's contribution to 20th and 21st Century music in every genre except the grandest of opera is hard to overvalue, for its variety, quality and boundless invention within a consistent self-contained aesthetic. It is often thoughtful or delicate but can achieve great, organically generated, expressive force, seen nowhere more clearly than in the keyboard works. The piano music overall is a hugely rewarding treasure house for performers interested in contemporary repertoire: it contains things that disturb, things that beguile, things that intrigue, things of complexity, things of startling simplicity and virtuosic tours-de-force. While never holding back from making great demands on players' technique or relishing sonoric possibilities, bravura writing is the outcome of thematic development or structural working rather than indulgence in gratuitous pyrotechnics. The greatest masterpieces, are broad in outline, meticulous in detail; the lightest trifles effective and engaging; all are original in concept, technicality and articulation, distinguished by clarity of vision, process and expression, powerful without rhetoric or light without triviality. The commonality of intent in McCabe's kaleidoscopic expressive range lies not in the genre - he was not a slave to genre - but in the mind and imagination of the composer.

Described by the ‘Times’ as ‘gifted’ and by ‘Music and Vision Magazine’ as ‘spellbinding’, Jane Ford is a musician of both passion and sensitivity. Her extensive performing career has included performances throughout Britain and abroad, at venues such as the Palau de la Musica (Valencia), the Palais D’Alan (France) and in London: St John’s Smith Square, St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Purcell Room, where she performed a World Premiere. Jane regularly appears as soloist for concertos, and in recent years has performed Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, all 5 Beethoven Concertos and Mozart’s ‘Coronation’ Concerto with the St. John’s Festival Orchestra in Chester. Jane has won numerous prizes at International competitions and broadcast on both television and radio, including a recital for BBC Radio 3.