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Search Results for "ronald stevenson"

Ronald Stevenson: Music for Accordion

Ronald Stevenson (1928–2015) is best remembered for his huge output of music for the piano, an instrument he played with a rare understanding of tonal colour. It was thus entirely within character that he responded enthusiastically to the opportunity to explore the musical possibilities of the accordion, most impressively in a ‘Dance Poem’ of some scale. Stevenson was also an inveterate transcriber, producing hundreds of piano versions of pieces written for other forces. Neil Sutcliffe here returns the compliment, transcribing one of Stevenson’s own piano works and five of his songs for accordion, pulling the classical world and Scottish traditional music a little closer together.

Neil Sutcliffe, accordion
Michae O’Rourke, percussion
Rosie Lavery, soprano

Ronald Stevenson: The Man and His Music

A Symposium
Edited by Colin Scott-Sutherland
Foreword by Lord Menuhin
Extent: 507 pages
Composition: Royal octavo ~ 509p ~ Copiously illustrated ~ List of Works ~ Bibliography ~ Discography ~ Index of Stevenson's Music ~ General Index

Comrades in Art: The Correspondence of Ronald Stevenson and Percy Grainger, 1957-61, with Interviews, Essays and other Writings on Grainger by Ronald Stevenson

Ronald Stevenson, Percy Grainger
Edited by Teresa R. Balough
Extent: 300 pages
Composition: Royal octavo
Illustrations: 45 b/w

Ronald Stevenson: Piano Music, Volume Five

The personal generosity that made the Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson (1928–2015) such a warm and vibrant character extended also to his writing-desk: around a quarter of his enormous output is given over to transcriptions, mostly for piano, of music by other composers. Here he pays homage to three earlier colleagues whose music he particularly esteemed: Purcell, Delius and van Dieren. Stevenson described his version of Van Dieren’s String Quartet No. 5 (1931) as ‘transcribed as a piano sonata (which B. v. D. never composed)’ – and thus it became the piano sonata which Stevenson himself never composed. The album ends with Stevenson’s brief but achingly beautiful harmonisation of Purcell’s The Queen’s Dolour – as exquisite an example of the transcriber’s art as anyone could wish.

Christopher Guild, piano

Ronald Stevenson: Piano Music, Volume Six

This sixth instalment in Christopher Guild’s survey of the piano music of Ronald Stevenson (1928–2015) on Toccata Classics concentrates on works from the beginning of his career, most of it written after his decisive encounter with the music of Busoni. Although Stevenson had not yet moved to Scotland, the influence of Scottish folksong can be heard in some of these pieces, all of which are cast in the lyrical counterpoint that was a hallmark of Stevenson’s mature style.

Christopher Guild, piano

Ronald Stevenson: Piano Music, Volume Four

This fourth volume in Christopher Guild’s ongoing survey of the piano music of the pianist-composer Ronald Stevenson (1928–2015) – a major figure in the cultural life of twentieth- century Scotland – presents works inspired by the human voice, where Stevenson was concerned above all to make the piano sing, to allow it to express human feeling as naturally as possible. That concern can be heard both in his own pieces and his many transcriptions of music by other composers, which balance sophisticated craftsmanship and a refreshing emotional directness.

Christopher Guild, piano

Ronald Stevenson: Piano Music, Volume Two

This second album of piano music by the Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson (1928– 2015) focuses on several strands of his musical personality: his engagement with the folk traditions of Scotland and with Scottish cultural history, his concern to write rewarding music for young pianists, and his creative friendships with other musicians.

Christopher Guild, piano

Ronald Stevenson: Piano Music, Volume Three

The Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson (1928–2015) was a virtuoso concert pianist in the tradition of Beethoven, Liszt and Rachmaninov but, like his friend Percy Grainger, he was also fascinated by the folk musics of the world. This third album of his piano music juxtaposes his arrangements of Celtic – Breton, Cornish, Irish, Manx, Scots and Welsh – folk-songs and dances with his Chinese and Ghanaian Folk-Song Suites and his resourceful transcription of Grainger’s visionary Hill Song No. 1 for wind band, here realised as an expansive tone-poem for the piano.

Christopher Guild, piano

Ronald Stevenson: Piano Music, Volume One: A Celtic Album

The Scottish pianist Ronald Stevenson (born in 1928), a composer-performer in the grand tradition of Beethoven, Chopin and Rachmaninov, has written a generous quantity of music for his own instrument, ranging from tiny miniatures to his best-known work, the monumental Passacaglia on DSCH, This first of a series of recordings begins with an album inspired by the music of Scotland itself.

Christopher Guild, piano

Recording Francis George Scott’s Piano Music

Two years after I began to record it, the first-ever album of Francis George Scott’s piano music is now available. The programme as it appears… 

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