Jonathan Powell - 24 Dainas - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

J.S. Bach - Piano Concertos [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/04/2011

Grigory Krein (1879-1955), a member of an astonishing dynasty of Russian-Jewish musician-composers, was recognized by his contemporaries as one of the major composers of his day. His piano music charts a stylistic evolution from the early influence of Grieg, Reger (with whom he studied) and Debussy towards a more complex and chromatic language with harmonies that synthesize the sound-worlds of Skryabin and Szymanowski; there's also an echo of the rhapsodic Celtic wildness of Bax. Indeed, all of these pieces are informed by a remarkable sense of energy - latent in some and given it's head in others.

If any composer from the last hundred years can be said to have redefined the piano sonata, that composer is John White. A unique figure in British music, his vast compositional output documents a long involvement with the worlds of dance, theatre, experimentalism and electronica as well as with that of the concert hall. (Dave Smith, Senior Lecturer in Music, University of Hertfordshire.) InchI write a lot for piano for two main reasons being a pianist allows me to be in touch with a rich and exciting repertoire, which gives me a great variety of role models in terms of vocabulary and gesture with which to formulate and 'clothe' the ideas which come to me and seem to need expression. Being an idealistic rather than a InchcareerInch composer, I find the piano a handy vehicle for the uttering ('outering') of compositional thought, in that the inspiration goes directly into a performable medium without the salesmanship required for getting ensemble pieces played.Inch (John White, in conversation with Sarah Walker. The New English Keyboard School A Second 'Golden Age' Leonardo Music Journal Vol. 11 2001)