William Howard - Contemporary

Piani, Latebre (layers, hiding-places) is a set of three diverse pieces for solo piano, preceded by an introductory flourish presenting a tiny preview of their core material. The order of the three pieces is the choice of the pianist; differences of character between them suggest alternative dramatic narratives, depending on the ordering, and it seems appropriate that the interpreter should have a hand in this shaping. The work is built upon three archetypal materials of the piano keyboard: the tremolo (rapid alternation of two notes or chords), the scalic flourish up or down the keyboard and a striding idea in melody-and-bass. Each piece combines two of these three building materials, so that they resurface in different pieces. The music is concerned with the voicing of simultaneous layers, or piani, but also with the search for hidden expressive places - latebre - lurking in the familiar sound-world of the piano.

The work was commissioned by William Howard with funds generously provided by Landmark Chambers and is dedicated to Neil and Matilda King.

"Extraordinary...a real discovery" BBC Music Magazine October 2011

‘One of the most impressive piano works of recent times’ London Review of Books September 2006

‘At every moment one is conscious of the richly inventive imagination of a truly original musical mind’ Tempo Autumn 2003

Pavel Novák, also known as Pavel Zemek, was born in 1957 in Brno, Janáček’s home town. One of the most individual and distinctive Czech composers of his generation, Novák has written a large body of symphonic, choral, chamber and instrumental works that reflect both his devout religious faith and his interest in Moravian folk traditions. Among his most significant works is his Symphony No.2 (St. John Passion), which won a Janáček Foundation prize in 1998. His Symphony No.3 for solo piano and string orchestra was premiered at the 2005 Dartington International Summer School, which commissioned a further work for soprano, trumpet and organ, premiered in 2007. He has written several important works for the Schubert Ensemble, including a piano quintet, Royal Funeral Procession on Iona (1995), and a piano quartet Marian Variations (2000). His 24 Preludes and Fugues, based on the Bible, were written for William Howard over a 17-year period and reflect the evolution of the composer’s musical language during this time. They form a challenging 80-minute cycle, which has been described by composer David Matthews as ‘one of the most impressive piano works of recent times’. Novák’s fugues display a novel and powerful approach to the old Baroque form, being mostly free from counterpoint. The cycle starts with distinct and unconnected pieces, but strives increasingly towards a unity of form as it develops, while at the same time revealing the composer’s growing interest in unison and consonance in his compositional language. Scattered throughout the Preludes and Fugues are homages to Schütz, Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schubert.

‘a rather more serious affair possessing remarkable expressive strength for all its apparent restraint. This is the other gem in this generous release [Butler CD].’ Music Web International September 2007

Funérailles was written during the summer of 2005. Despite its title, the piece is not intended to be a morbid or even particularly sombre reflection on death or mortality; rather, it takes as a starting point the ritual and sequential shape associated with funerals or other formal ceremonies. It also makes significant use of bell-like tolling gestures as a way of creating a rather formal, cyclic structure. It can probably best be thought of as an extended study in piano sonorities, at times deep, dark and resonant, at others vivid and bright.
© Martin Butler January 2006

‘These tiny pieces use the simplest ideas to create areas of resonant stillness. To play these pieces well needs a purity of soul, which Howard evidently has; you can tell within a few minutes that he has never played a flashy or ill-considered note in his life.’ Independent December 2002

‘Reflections consist of nothing more than processions of two-note chords, which have to be placed with exquisite care if the tension isn’t to sag. William Howard did it beautifully, and he gave the Satie-esque quirkiness of the fifth piece just the right aloof grace.’ Independent February 2007

The first seven of this set of short piano pieces were written for William Howard’s recital at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival in October 1999 and partly inspired by the beautiful late 19th century photographs of Norfolk by Peter Emerson. A further four were added in 2002. © Howard Skempton

Vista is the first of a planned sequence of pieces, to be followed by varied and increasing combinations of instruments, all to include piano. The sequence will form a musical reflection or interpretation of aspects of Italian renaissance and baroque gardens. These gardens sometimes told a story, typically derived from mythology as filtered through Ovid in his Metamorphoses. Change, growth, and a purposely limited content all suggested to me a musical equivalent in variation form, which will be what the pieces will mainly explore.

The most important elements of 16th/17th century Italian gardens were green planting (including mazes, avenues and 'green' theatres, sculpture (generally allegorical or symbolic, often light-hearted or grotesque), and water (active and capricious in fountains, cascades and 'scherzi d'acqua', still and reflective in pools and basins, or both, in 'water theatres').

Vista likewise introduces three musical elements which are varied and developed as the piece evolves. Ideas are heard, as it were, from different perspectives and distances and, like a garden vista, reveal possibilities to be explored in later pieces in the sequence.

'The main interest in the programme was the premiere of a totally delightful piano concerto by Judith Weir…Weir's work, in three movements, lasts 15 minutes and is a triumph of economy. At times Brittenish with a Scottish spin, she has brilliantly succeeded in writing a concerto that should attain popular success...the Concerto was written for Howard who gave an utterly convinced performance.' Independent June 1997

'The appeal of the music, as always with Weir, is that every sound is so perfectly imagined in the mind's ear. She demands precision playing and the BT Scottish Ensemble, with William Howard as the pianist, did not let her down.' BBC Music Magazine August 1997

I have written numerous pieces for the pianist William Howard over the last fifteen or so years (including Music for 247 Strings, The Art of Touching the Keyboard, I broke off a golden branch and El Rey de Francia), but even more numerous are the pieces I would like to have written for him if I had ad the time or opportunity. Amongst the many ideas he and I discussed over a long period was that of my writing him a piano concerto. But it always seemed as if our idea of a piano concerto was not the same as everbody else's. Ever since the modern piano was born, the composition of piano concertos has been on an inflationary spiral, and it is now a musical form associated with the crashingly loud side of music. This is not the kind of music I like to write.

But knowing of William Howard's performances of such small scale concertos as the Mozart K449 with as few as five strings in the accompanying orchestra, I was inspired to write a contemporary piece which lives in the space between chamber music and virtuoso spectacle. The generous offer from Anthony and Mary Henrfey to commission anything I wanted to write for chamber orchestra came at just the right time to explore this idea, and this fifteen minute piece (in three unnamed movements) for piano and orchestra of nine strings is the result. It is warmly dedicated to Dr and Mrs Henfrey, on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary; and to William Howard, one of my most stimulating colleagues.

© Judith Weir 1997

'Beamish began the Sonata as a study in abstract writing, the first movement working its way upwards through slow paragraphs of counterpoint, the second through dark and even slower paragraphs of chords. But the world kept breaking in. Icelandic drumming inspired the driving rhythms of the third movement. And with the fourth came an even starker vision: her musical answer, through a quietly transparent elegy, to the horrors of Dunblane. In Howard's capable reading it stood freely without the need for verbal explanation, while gaining an added dimension when we knew the story.' Independent May 1996

Looking back over my work to date I find that every piece stems in some way from a direct 'outside' inspiration - a painting, a poem, a ballad, a story. In writing my first large-scale work for piano I set myself the challenge of returning to purely abstract musical ideas -something I used as a child, but somehow haven't had the confidence to use since. My first instrument was the piano, and it has always been closely bound up with my composing, so I feel with this piece I am returning 'to my roots'.

This Sonata is in four movements, each of which reflects a different aspect of pianistic technique: 1. Andante (counterpoint) 2. Lento (harmony) 3. Presto possible (dexterity) 4. Adagio molto espressivo (melody).

However, having completed the piece, I have to admit, in spite of my resolve, to certain outside influences. The third movement is inspired by a piece for solo sidedrum by the Icelandic composer Askell Masson, and the last movement by birdsong. I was about to embark on the last movement when the news came of the tragedy in Dunblane. I could not separate my work from my shock and distress. A few days before, I had been surrounded by a class of small children discussing birdsong in music. The movement somehow reflects both events, with austere, melodic calls surrounded by silence.

This work was commissioned by William Howard with funds generously provided by the David N. James CBE Music Charitable Trust.

© Sally Beamish 1996

'The idea behind Anthony Powers' beautiful new work for piano The Memory Room is a seductive one. For the composer has conceived a set of 16 short pieces which, in imagining what the piano itself might remember of its past, evokes the keyboard styles of several centuries, while retaining its own brilliant individuality….despite such extraordinary diversity, the musical ideas are so precisely conceived that the work has a classic sense of balance, beautifully brought out in William Howard's exemplary performance.' Musical Times April 1993

'I enjoyed encountering The Memory Room…Veering unpredictably between moments of Lisztian sparkle, Beethoven-like muscularity, nightclub jazziness and private meditation, The Memory Room still manages to speak in a voice recognisably its own, and has plenty to say in its diverting 15-minute span,' Classic CD

Unlike my two previous works for solo piano, both large-scale sonatas, The Memory Room consists of 16 short, or very short pieces.

The title refers to the Renaissance 'memory theatres' in which a collection of images stimulates the memory, but more specifically I imagined the hall in which the piano is heard (even the piano itself, which is now, of all instruments, the most laden with memories of its own repertoire) as a memory room.

So the music evokes, and alludes to, a wide variety of keyboard styles from the 16th to the 20th centuries, from classical to rock. The fourteenth piece contains memories of these memories, whilst within the overall cycle there is a secondary thread formed by four time pieces (nos.I, VIII, Xiii, XVI) which, starting in clear bright colours, become progressively darker and more clouded.

© Anthony Powers 1990

I have always considered Kafka as an author who cannot be set to music, not only because he himself writes: "one particular strength I have…it's my being unmusical", but also because his works are written in a cool, objective language, as of an accountant, describing the book-keeping of life, with a detachment and a distance, not allowing any affective emotions, and that excludes music completely. But the letters to Milena are completely different; here we find a sensitive, passionate Kafka, deeply involved in his relationship. The letters are of a trembling nervosity and excitement, scared to death, full of love and admiration, of humbleness and self-humiliation, but also of worry and anxiety and finally of despair. But even here sometimes his dry humour and self-irony are not absent. This atmosphere of the letters, changing mood often from sentence to sentence, attracted me, and I tried to express it. Some of the pieces use a speciality of letter writing not common in composition, namely, the post-script.

© Petr Eben 1990

'…a compact and assured work whose point is helped by the strength of its progressive musical logic. This progression is matched in the succession and combination of varied keyboard textures, particularly in the expansive fantasia manner of its calmly lyrical slow movement.' Independent February 1990

'It shows off Matthews' ability to compose idiomatically, in the clearest textures…and with a winning impetuousness combined with a fastidious ear. Howard had thoroughly absorbed the spirit of the music and played it with an impressive confidence and technical command.' Times February 1990

'…an unflagging energy and inventiveness well able to sustain a clearly laid-out 16-minute structure…played with authority and eloquence by its dedicatee William Howard.' Gramophone March 1995

For a long time I was reluctant to compose anything substantial for the piano, preferring to write for instruments I cannot play at all rather than the one I play very imperfectly myself. But eventually William Howard persuaded me to compose this Sonata. Because he is such a fine Schubert pianist I had the sound of the Schubert Sonatas in mind while I was writing the piece; not that my Sonata sounds much like Schubert - perhaps distantly in a few places like the slow movement - but I was aiming at the clarity and relative sparseness of Schubert's textures. There is a lot of two-part writing, and sometimes a big space between the treble and bass. There are also a great number of rests: the dramatic use of silence is an important feature, especially in the first movement.

The Sonata lasts about fifteen minutes and plays continuously. It may be heard either as three consecutive movements - sonata allegro, slow movement, scherzo plus coda - or as a piece in fifteen sections each lasting roughly a minute, which is how I originally conceived it. Each section is based on a different tonality, beginning and ending in A. In the opening allegro the emphasis is at first on rhythm, but at its central point - the moment of recapitulation - there is a sudden irruption of melody, which then becomes dominant. Eventually the melodic line overflows into a three-part slow movement, almost all quiet and lyrical. Then comes a miniature scherzo and trio, with jazzy triplet rhythms, before a return to the music of the opening and an exuberant coda.

© David Matthews 1989

'The best and most convincing work I have heard from Hellawell's pen. Even at first hearing, there is a logical progress about the five constituent pieces that carry much conviction and, more important from the listener's oint of view, are really accessible…the movements did add up to a work of considerable proportions and substance. The excellent performance must be considered definitive.' Belfast Telegraph February 1989

'There was the same liquidity of touch in Piers Hellawell's riveting Das Leonora's Notenbuch…' Independent December 2002

This commission sought a work with a link to its festival theme, that of the Italian Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso. Rather than finding stimulus from his work, I was engaged by the legend surrounding Tasso's life, though much of this is now held to be fanciful. It has been passed down that Tasso was the lover of Leonora D'Este, sister to a famous princeling, and that he was imprisoned by the prince, on discovery, as being socially unworthy of the liaison by virtue of his low birth. I therefore conceived the piano work as a series of short love-letters from the poet to Leonora. The 'Das Notenbuch' of the title mimics that of Bach's set of short pieces to his wife Anna Magdalena, of course.

The five pieces form a trajectory from initial passion to concluding stillness, and at the same time from brevity to length. Thus the first piece is manic but very short - though carefully organized within; the last piece, meanwhile, is a static meditation lasting a full 5 minutes. In between, the pace is gradually relaxed, as the pieces extend in duration. Pieces 3 and 4 are obvious examples of a technique much used by me in subsequent works, namely random rotation of a collection of five or more musical objects - mere phrases or even chords - while they are gradually recomposed. This technique, used most recently in my string quartet of 2000, occurred first here, giving rise to an obsessive feeling, of being 'locked in' to one set of materials, that I have found attractive in other contexts.

© Piers Hellawell 2002

'Eleven Studies in Velocity are intended to offer a variety of solutions to the problem of writing fast music…These brief pieces, all but two of which can be played in any order, are more than mere experiments with different textures, however. They are also extremely tricky for the player, while their expressive range is wide, from the veiled textures of the one which Howard played first to the final, climactic toccata which moves from the low tessitura to high in exuberant celebration.' Times October 1987

'Eleven Studies in Velocity I found particularly successful, and which completed the proffered picture of contemporary British piano music as coruscating, quick-witted and fast.' Financial Times October 1988

'In Colin Matthews' Eleven Studies in Velocity Howard proved he can also summon a diamond brilliance.' Independent December 2002

Although, as the title implies, these studies are all fast, they are not in the first place studies in pianistic virtuosity, so much as studies in various ways of composing fast music. All are short and concentrated, with few lasting more than a minute. Since the order of performance is largely up to the pianist, there is no point in trying to describe them, except to say that one (which should be placed near the end) is a nocturne, with the only slow textures of the eleven, and the final piece is in the nature of a toccata.

© Colin Matthews 1987

'In Judith Weir's The Art of Touching the Keyboard he perceptively captured the composer's studies in pianistic devices and effects.' Daily Telegraph January 1984

'The Art of Touching the Keyboard, an avowed study of types of keyboard attack, has a surprising unity, a feeling that the whole piece is in a single span.' Gramophone December 1995

The title of this music is an over-literal translation of the title of Francois Couperin's harpsichord tutor of 1716, L'Art de toucher le clavecin. It seemed appropriate for a piece which begins with the player pressing single keys tentatively, as if encountering the instrument for the first time, and ends ten minutes later with the same repeated notes marked "confident and relaxed". In the interim, the music, which is in a single continuous movement, demonstrates the many ways in which the piano keys can be touched, from the gentlest of strokes to the most vicious of blows.

The Art of Touching the Keyboard was commissioned by William Howard with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain.

© Judith Weir 1983

Reviews and Programme Notes

Reviews and Programme Notes

Reviews and Programme Notes

Reviews and Programme Notes

Reviews and Programme Notes

Reviews and Programme Notes

Reviews and Programme Notes

Reviews and Programme Notes

Reviews and Programme Notes

Reviews and Programme Notes

Reviews and Programme Notes

Reviews and Programme Notes

Reviews and Programme Notes