Time: 7:30 PM

Date: 01/11/05

Location:

CCA Piano Concert

Other Information:

Music for One and Two Pianos
Part One - Music for One Piano

Peter Crump - Three Roses
The Three Roses were written in 2005.   The rose is the archetypal flower.   Rose bushes and rose trees can ususally be trained into formal shapes and rose gardens are usually formal in layout. Hence old-fashioned well-known forms like binary and ternary are appropriate for pieces that claim to be musical representations of roses.    Rosa Centifolia  (hundred leaves) and Rosa Alba Maxima (the great white rose) are self-explanatory.  Rosa Complicata  is a rambler and is represented by a rambling fugue.    The branches of the tree it rambles over can be heard in some of the chords. The idiom is tonal plus.   If the plus produces some astringent harmonies it must be remembered that roses have thorns.

Three Roses is dedicated to my wife Mary.

Clement Jewitt - (details to follow)

Raymond Head - Gloriae Primordium  

Gloriae Primordium was written in 1997 and first performed by the composer at the Leominster Festival in the same year. Since that time the work has been revised and in the process various aspects of the piece have been expanded. Gloriae Primordium means "in anticipation of the awakening of the spirit". It is at once very expressive and almost dynamically brutal; during the course of the last section the piece becomes ecstatic before leading to a final evanescence.

Kenneth Gange - (details to follow)

Rosemary Duxbury - On Wings of Light  

Composed in 1995, On Wings of Light received its world premiere in Geneva at the Institut Jacques-Dalcroze, and its British premiere at the Fraser Noble Hall, University of Leicester, in 1998, performed by Swiss pianist Patricia Siffert to whom the piece is dedicated.

Part Two - Music for Two Pianos

Andrew Downes - Sonata for Two Pianos  
The Lord will be a Refuge for the Oppressed; a Refuge in times of trouble Opus 40 (1987) 20

Specially commissioned by Joseph Weingarten and Margaret Newman for their concerts in aid of the Interdenominational Society for Russian Jewry. First performed by them on July l2th 1987 in the Sir Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham.  Numerous performances of this work have since taken place. The Sonata was first performed in Israel by Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir in January 1989 in the Israel Philharmonic Guest House, Tel Aviv, in a concert with members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, celebrating the return to Israel of the Refusnik, Elena Keiss-Kuna. The work was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 by Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir in 1990, as part of a broadcast recital which they gave in the Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham. The Duo Scaramouche have played the work at several venues throughout Europe, including the Salle des Arts, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Paris; on French Radio - France Musique; and on Italian Television in a full length programme featuring an interview with the composer.

Robert Ramskill - 3 Bagatelles for 2 Pianos  
The 3 Bagatelles for 2 Pianos were commissioned by tonights performers for inclusion in a series of concerts of music for two pianos that they gave in April and May 2004. Each bagatelle has its own title as follows:

 1) Below Freezing. (Im sorry to say I cant remember now the reason for this title).

2) La Mezquita de Cordoba. (This piece turned out to have a Spanish flavour so I named it after one of my favourite pieces of Spanish architecture, the Cathedral in Cordoba, originally built as a mosque, or mezquita, by the Moorish rulers of Andalucia in the middle ages).

3) O Frabjous Day. (As this was about as exuberant and cheerful piece as I can imagine writing I used this phrase from Lewis Carrolls Jabberwocky.  It expresses a mood of great jubilation that I thought was appropriate).