SOMM Recordings announces Cascade; the exhilarating new recital by pianist Cordelia Williams featuring music by Beethoven, Schumann, and Prokofiev. Cascade explores music’s mercurial ability to change in an instant; to reveal depths beneath the surface; and to illustrate; as Williams says; “that the whole world can change entirely in one twist of perspective; one change of angle; to offer a glimpse of something bigger”.

Early and late Beethoven bookend the program. Unpublished in his lifetime; the C major Bagatelle (WoO 56) flickers and glints; sparkles and surprises with kaleidoscope-like brilliance. His Op.126 Six Bagatelles – among the very last pieces he wrote for solo piano – alternate between the introspective and the garrulous; each turned inside out to reveal new facets and features. A variegated collection of 20 miniatures with hints of Chopin; Scriabin and Shostakovich to be found; Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives; Op.22 are essentially a series of meditations; each individually pursuing a specific idea or mood while collectively exploring the hinterland between surface appearance and what lies beneath; and all expressed with comparable crystalline clarity. Schumann’s Waldszenen (Forest Scenes); his last major cycle for solo piano; is an enchanted landscape lit up by beguiling pastoralism and shadow-cast by darker recesses of the imagination. Two sides of the same coin: Arcadia in excelsis; and red in tooth and claw.

Booklets notes; as with all of Cordelia Williams’ recent SOMM releases; have been written by Michael Quinn. Piano winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition; Cordelia Williams’ previous SOMM releases include her acclaimed coupling of Bach and Arvo Pärt (SOMMCD 0186); hailed by International Piano as “a magnificently stimulating concept; brilliantly recognised”; well-received recitals of Schubert (SOMMCD 0127) and Schumann (SOMMCD 0150); and Nightlight (SOMMCD 0639); which Fanfare hailed for Williams’ “spectacular playing” and which Gramophone described as “extraordinary”.