John Ogdon was one of the great musical geniuses of the 20th century. His astonishing career on the concert platform saw him become one of...

John Ogdon was one of the great musical geniuses of the 20th century. His astonishing career on the concert platform saw him become one of the world’s most popular pianists after winning joint 1st prize in the 1962 International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition. Away from his life as a pianist, he was privately a very passionate composer throughout his career and despite his extremely heavy concert schedule, managed to write approximately two hundred works. Despite a small handful of works that were published during his lifetime, the rest of Ogdon’s manuscripts have remained almost entirely unexplored. Due to his pianistic ambitions, composition was always an unfocused pastime to John Ogdon and it is perhaps the reason why his writing style is sporadic and difficult to define.

It is arguable that his best work was produced in the late 1950s and '60s, before his infamous breakdown; they display a rather neo-romantic style, contrary to the avant-garde atonality written by most of his Manchester contemporaries. Despite enormous technical complexities, the piano writing is also wonderfully idiomatic and gives tremendous insight into the geographical facility of one of history’s most renowned piano techniques. This recording presents the four most important solo piano works from John Ogdon’s early years as a composer.

“I do enjoy composing, especially for the piano – I look on composing as a hobby that I enjoy. I devote myself more to playing and treat composition as a spare time thing.” (John Ogdon)

REVIEWS:

Not surprisingly, Ogdon’s piano-writing is thoroughly idiomatic and physically logical for the average hand.

The young pianist Tyler Hay has brilliantly mastered and assimilated these often elusive scores, even to the point where I heretically prefer his interpretations to Ogdon’s. For example, the Sonata benefits from Hay’s smoother and steadier control in the first-movement exposition and shapelier slow-movement trills. And while Ogdon’s exciting but slapdash live 1979 archival recording of the Variations and Fugue remains a valuable document, Hay’s studio traversal homes in on the daunting details without sacrificing the bigger picture. Furthermore, Hay’s booklet notes prove him to be every inch as intelligent and insightful away from the keyboard.

-- Gramophone (Jed Distler)