William Howard Pianist © 2016
Solo Recordings
For details of recordings with the Schubert Ensemble click here
For live video recordings with the Schubert Ensemble click here
Sixteen Nocturnes and a Lantern for solo piano
Blue Cloud (Orchid Classics) ORC100300 (2024)
A collection of nocturnes by Maria Szymanowska, Chopin, Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Fauré, Rachmaninov and others, concluding with Howard Skempton's Lantern (2023)
RELEASED ON 17 MAY 2024
"Very, very skilfully and intelligently programmed" Katy Hamilton, BBC Record Review Saturday18th May 2024
"Katy Hamilton loves the way William Howard leads us through this recital. It’s beautifully designed…" Andrew McGregor BBC Record Review Saturday 18th May 2024
Piers Hellawell Up By The Roots
Delphian DCD34223 (2020)
For this collection of colourful and imaginative works by Piers Hellawell performed by various artists, William Howard has contributed the premiere recording of Piani, Latebre, a three-movement work written for and premiered by him in 2010.
RELEASED ON 28 FEBRUARY 2020
"Piers Hellawell’s music is as refreshing as it is alluringly strange. The idiom, expressed in its many facets in this second representative recording of Hellawell’s music, is in one sense mainstream late 20th century, yet there is a visceral energy that gives it a sense of the here and now. Much of that is down to pulsating performances by varying scales of instrumental scoring, from the dense virtuosity of the Ulster Orchestra in Wild Flow, to the rhapsodic otherworldliness of Piani, Latebre, performed by solo pianist William Howard." The Scotsman April 2020
Howard Skempton Piano Works
Orchid Classics ORC100116 (2020)
Premiere recording of Howard Skempton's 24 Preludes and Fugues, written for William Howard in 2019, together with Images (1989), Three Nocturnes (1995) and Reflections (1999-2002)
RELEASED ON 7 FEBRUARY 2020
"Delicate, incisive, atmospheric, this music, as played by Howard, acts as balm to brain, ear and soul” Observer Feb 2020 Full review
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Sixteen Contemporary Love Songs for solo piano
Orchid Classics ORC100083 (2018)
A collection of love songs for solo piano by Nico Muhly, Judith Weir, Richard Reed Parry, Howard Skempton, Elena Kats-Chernin, Cheryl Frances-Hoad and others, all expressions of love of some kind. Full track list
RELEASED ON 1 JUNE 2018
"a gorgeous collection and it's beautifully played here." **** BBC Music Magazine September 2018
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Sixteen Love Songs for solo piano
Orchid Classics ORC100056 (2016)
A collection of beautiful and romantic pieces written by Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Dvořák, Suk, Fauré, Granados, Rachmaninov and others, all expressions of love of some kind.
RELEASED ON 2 JUNE 2016
"A fantastic new release...William Howard plays them exquisitely." Classic FM (Drive Discovery of the Week 3 June 2016
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Piano Works by Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin and David Matthews
Nimbus NI 6275 (2014)
"A thoughtful, poetic player, Howard has devised a recital sequence of uncommon appeal. It ranges from Mendelssohn's youthful, brilliant Rondo Capriccioso, Op14, to Wagner's entire Ring, as compressed by David Matthews into four mini movements, totalling six minutes, and beautifully incorporates mid-romantic lyrical masterpieces by Schubert, Schumann and Chopin. Matthews's own felicitous Four Portraits (one of which is of Howard himself) receives its first recording: and his stirring achievement in The Shorter Ring is such as to make one think Nietsche may have been right when he called Wagner 'our greatest miniaturist in music.'"
Paul Driver Sunday Times 29 June 2014
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Pavel Zemek Novák 24 Preludes and Fugues (1979-2006)
Champs Hill Records CHR016 (2011) world premiere recording
""one of those works that practically redefines its genre…It's a work of tremendous virtuosity and drastic extremes of dynamic and register that expands to absorb a wealth of styles…Superb performance and stunning sound: a real discovery." BBC Music Magazine October 2011 (double five-star review)
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Zdenk Fibich Moods Impressions and Souvenirs
Chandos Records CHAN 9381 (1993) winner of Diapason D'Or Award, Pengion Guide ***
""William Howard's performances of a sensitively chosen selection of forty pieces is unerringly sensitive to scale and tone" " BBC Music Magazine September 1995
"Howard plays them with a careful attention to their detail,m to the deft manner in which a memorable idea can be created on the page, and with affectionate phrasing of their warm melodies." The Gramophone September 1995
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Antonín Dvořák Piano Works
Chandos Records CHAN 9044 (1992) Gramophione Critics' Choice
""William Howard's devotion to Czech music was bound to lead him eventually to Dvořák, and this carefully balanced selection, drawn from across the composer's career, will give new listeners a good idea of what they are missing by this neglect. All the familiar Dvořák elements - strong melodic lines, sturdy rhythms, tender lyricism, unabashed sentiment, open-hearted bonhomie and an unmistakeable love of country - are to be found here, and Howard expresses them admirably in his cleamly recorded and welcome recital." Hi-Fi News
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Judith Weir Piano Concerto, The Art of Touching the Keyboard and other works
NMC D090 (2003)
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"She possesses that singular gift of a distinctive composer: the ability to make the most mundane of musical material, perhaps a simple scale passage or some bare octaves, seem surprising and strange. That's how her music comes upon its special flavour and intrinsic elusiveness." The Guardian (Classical CD of the Week)
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Brahms Four Intermezzi and Piano Quintet
Champs Hill Records CHRCD011
"William Howard's thoughtful, sepia-tinted readings of the Opus117 Intermezzi and the second Opus 118 Intermezzo complete the disc, the last as gentle as a kiss." Anna Picard, The Independent
"The real joy of the disc, however, lies in the etceteras: Howard's beautifully paced and non-indulgent accounts of the three opus 117 Intermezzi and the second from the opus 118 set - more than mere fillers." Sunday Herald
"Beautifully played" The Gramophone
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Martin Butler Funérailles, Nathaniel's Mobile and other works
NMC D120 (2007)
"This is one of the loveliest discs I have heard recently." Music Web International
"The most striking works, however, are the two piano pieces: Nathaniel's Mobile - which intercuts linear and harmonised melody so the music evolves, without intensifying, towards its conclusion; and Funérailles, which adds a more disruptive element that opens out the music's dynamic and emotional range on the way to its quiet and restive close....These performances are as sensitive and as assured as one would expect..." Gramophone