Prima Facie Records

Piano Polyptych (PFCD006)

Performed by Clare Hammond

CD OUT OF STOCK
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Four Bagatelles (2008) Giles Swayne
Das Leonora Notenbuch (1998) Piers Hellawell
Three Japanese Minatures (2002) Kenneth Hesketh
Piano Polyptych (1993) Philip Grange
Piano Etudes Nos 1-3 (1995-8) Julian Anderson
Basho (1996) Piers Hellawell

About this album

In a 1921 article on Stravinsky, Arthur Bliss observed that small forms ‘where technique is experimental or mode of expression individual’ are extremely revealing, as if we are admitted to a workshop and given insight into a composer’s methods and concerns. Disregarding obvious things like commissions, com- posers write such pieces, songs say or piano pieces, for any number of reasons; to address and a single musical, expressive or technical issue in isolation, to write something for yourself or a friend that doesn’t get in the way of major jobs, or step outside yourself for a moment to explore another persona. They can be sketches, self-contained statements, ideas-banks, stylistic microcosms or pure experiment, while larg- er piano works can roadtest developmental form and structures of motivic working over extended times- pans free of other constraints; or they can just be representative works that happen to be piano pieces. Pretty well all the above feature on this CD. These works, all from the last 25 years, are chosen to show the extraordinary vigour, invention and sty- listic variety of British piano writing ‘par les petits touches’ as the French critic Roland Manuel would say, with its range of style, timbre and basic approach to the nature of the instrument, embracing, extending or rejecting traditional concepts of pianism.

Credits

Clare Hammond piano
Recorded on 3-4/01/2011 at the Cosmo Rodeswald Hall, University of Manchester
Engineer Michael Langley
Produced by Giles Easterbrook
Executive Producer Stephen Plews

Acclaimed as a pianist of “amazing power and panache” (The Telegraph), Clare Hammond is recognised for the virtuosity and authority of her performances and is developing a “reputation for brilliantly imaginative concert programmes” (BBC Music Magazine, ‘Rising Star’). In 2014 she gave debut performances at 7 festivals across Europe, including the ‘Chopin and his Europe Festival’ in Warsaw, world premieres of works by 10 composers, and three broadcasts for BBC Radio.