Archive for Guest Blog
Prokofiev’s Violin Partnerships
At the beginning of October Toccata Classics will release a new album, by the violinist Yuri Kalnits and pianist Yulia Chaplina, of music by Prokofiev…
Elcock: From One Fifth To Another
Steve Elcock has mastered the fast introduction. A device favoured by Berlioz gets a new lease of life: both Elcock’s Third (2005–10) and this new…
Songs of Love, Sorrow and Satire (And Not Forgetting the Baboon!): Recording Hans Gál’s Music for Voices
One of the proudest, happiest and most surreal moments in my singing career to date has been uttering the final notes of a choral concert…
Some Thoughts on My First Volume of Philipp Scharwenka’s Piano Music
My contact with Philipp Scharwenka’s music came from my in-depth study of the great Portuguese pianist José Vianna da Motta (1868–1948), who, at the age…
A Selfie With Napoleon: Some Even More Modest Memories and ‘Previntable’ Mistakes on my Antheil Trail
Reading Martin Anderson’s ‘modest memories’ of André Previn brought to mind that, during my millennial research on George Antheil (bearing fruit, among other places, in…
Remembering Roger Smalley
A new Toccata Classics release restores to circulation the music of a composer who was both a cutting-edge modernist and an enthusiast for Romantic figures…
Cooking Up A Symphony: Steve Elcock Examines What Makes A Good Recipe
After I posted a recipe on one of the social networks, two composer friends suggested, jokingly, that I should come up with a recipe for…
‘A Gigantic Bear Hug’ From Scotland
The third volume of Ronald Stevenson’s piano music (TOCC 0403, released on 1 February) has been probably the most interesting album of his music I’ve…
Remembering Cedric Thorpe Davie
Cedric Thorpe Davie was born into a musical family in London in 1913. His father, Thorpe Davie, was a remarkable Scot who had a successful…
Remembering Sasha: Alexander Ivashkin Honoured in Moscow
In Moscow in early November 2018, a series of events were staged to honour the memory of Alexander Ivashkin – cellist, scholar and champion of…
Rediscovering George Antheil — Not Such a ‘Bad Boy’ After All
When Martin Anderson of Toccata Classics first suggested a project of music by the American composer George Antheil, I immediately thought of the typically avant-garde…
Recording “An Outstretched Hand” and Other Chamber Works
At half past four on a Friday morning in May 2018 I set out from my home in south-eastern France to go to England. The…
An Infinity of Traces: Influence Without Anxiety
I often play a kind of party game with friends: each participant will offer a recording of a piece of music by a less-well-known composer,…
Introducing the Waldegrave Ensemble
The Waldegrave Ensemble established itself in 2009 as a flexible ensemble of wind, strings, piano, harp and brass, with a wind quintet at its core.…
All the Keys in Kent
One of the Toccata Classics releases later this summer will be a recording of a sequence of piano preludes commissioned from me in 2014 by…
Robert Saxton’s Piano Music: A Creative Collaboration
Clare Hammond introduces her album of Robert Saxton’s piano music, in preparation for release in March 2018 In August I travelled to SJE Arts in…