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SOMM Recordings

Colour and Light: 20th-Century British Piano Music

$20.99

Details

Composer: VARIOUS
Artist: Nathan Williamson
Format: CD
Label: SOMM Recordings
Released: Apr 19, 2019
Catalog #: SOMMCD 0196
UPC: 748871019621

About

Following Great American Sonatas, his admired debut on SOMM RECORDINGS, pianist Nathan Williamson turns to British piano music of the 20th century in Color and Light, a revealing exploration of how the past influences the present and the new. A century-spanning programme from Delius's quixotic 1887 Nocturne (more familiar as An Nacht, the Florida Suite's finale, here in Robert Threlfall's 1986 transcription) to Anthony Herschel Hill's combustible Toccata of 1985 also lights on three other distinctive but highly contrasted composers. Modernity makes itself felt in Elisabeth Lutyens' The Ring of Bone (1975), which strikingly employs the use of spoken text in what Williamson describes in his booklet notes as "a bold and heartfelt gesture". William Alwyn's Twelve Preludes (1958) pay a glancing nod to Lutyens' serialist techniques even while displaying "a peculiarly English combination of both tonality and modality" characteristically his own. Peter Dickinson's "postmodern, poly-stylistic" Paraphrase II (1967) is the work of a composer open to the broadest influences, it's seven sections inventively re-working an earlier three-part motet and receiving here their first studio recordings. Slowly emerging into the light, Anthony Herschel Hill's Litany (1992) and Toccata (1985) - heard here in first recordings - are the product of a wholly individual compositional voice, boasting, says Williamson, "some of the most gorgeously idiomatic and exhilarating piano writing of any late-20th century composer". Delius's Prelude and Duet from his one-act opera Margot la Rouge, composed in 1902 yet un-performed until 1983, are distinctive for their delicate harmonic textures and colors, masterfully transcribed for piano by Maurice Ravel. Featuring music by Bernstein, Copland, Charles Ives and Lou Harrison, Great American Sonatas, Nathan Williamson's 2017 SOMM Recordings debut was hailed by Gramophone as "a release of distinction".

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Tracklist 25 tracks

1 No. 1 in E-Flat Major 02:23

Track
1

Title
No. 1 in E-Flat Major
Duration
02:23
Composer
William Alwyn
Performer
Nathan Williamson
2 No. 2 in A Major 02:02

Track
2

Title
No. 2 in A Major
Duration
02:02
Composer
William Alwyn
Performer
Nathan Williamson
3 No. 3 in A Major 01:42

Track
3

Title
No. 3 in A Major
Duration
01:42
Composer
William Alwyn
Performer
Nathan Williamson
4 No. 4 in F Major 01:34

Track
4

Title
No. 4 in F Major
Duration
01:34
Composer
William Alwyn
Performer
Nathan Williamson
5 No. 5 in D Major 03:43

Track
5

Title
No. 5 in D Major
Duration
03:43
Composer
William Alwyn
Performer
Nathan Williamson
6 No. 6 in G and F-Sharp Major 02:38

Track
6

Title
No. 6 in G and F-Sharp Major
Duration
02:38
Composer
William Alwyn
Performer
Nathan Williamson
7 No. 7 in B Major 02:44

Track
7

Title
No. 7 in B Major
Duration
02:44
Composer
William Alwyn
Performer
Nathan Williamson
8 No. 8 in E-Flat Major 01:42

Track
8

Title
No. 8 in E-Flat Major
Duration
01:42
Composer
William Alwyn
Performer
Nathan Williamson
9 No. 9 in C Major 01:20

Track
9

Title
No. 9 in C Major
Duration
01:20
Composer
William Alwyn
Performer
Nathan Williamson
10 No. 10 in D Major 02:09

Track
10

Title
No. 10 in D Major
Duration
02:09
Composer
William Alwyn
Performer
Nathan Williamson
11 No. 11 in D-Flat Major 01:25

Track
11

Title
No. 11 in D-Flat Major
Duration
01:25
Composer
William Alwyn
Performer
Nathan Williamson
12 No. 12 in D Major 02:41

Track
12

Title
No. 12 in D Major
Duration
02:41
Composer
William Alwyn
Performer
Nathan Williamson
13 Theme: quarter note = 80 or less 01:55

Track
13

Title
Theme: quarter note = 80 or less
Duration
01:55
Composer
Peter Dickinson
Performer
Nathan Williamson
14 Variation 1: quarter note = 120-132 01:00

Track
14

Title
Variation 1: quarter note = 120-132
Duration
01:00
Composer
Peter Dickinson
Performer
Nathan Williamson
15 Variation 2: quarter note = 50 02:44

Track
15

Title
Variation 2: quarter note = 50
Duration
02:44
Composer
Peter Dickinson
Performer
Nathan Williamson
16 Variation 3: quarter note = 120 01:10

Track
16

Title
Variation 3: quarter note = 120
Duration
01:10
Composer
Peter Dickinson
Performer
Nathan Williamson
17 Variation 4: quarter note = 104-120 01:26

Track
17

Title
Variation 4: quarter note = 104-120
Duration
01:26
Composer
Peter Dickinson
Performer
Nathan Williamson
18 Variation 5: quartet note = 54 01:51

Track
18

Title
Variation 5: quartet note = 54
Duration
01:51
Composer
Peter Dickinson
Performer
Nathan Williamson
19 Variation 6: quarter note = 120-132 04:17

Track
19

Title
Variation 6: quarter note = 120-132
Duration
04:17
Composer
Peter Dickinson
Performer
Nathan Williamson
20 Florida Suite: IV. At Night (arr. R. Threlfall for piano) 08:48

Track
20

Title
Florida Suite: IV. At Night (arr. R. Threlfall for piano)
Duration
08:48
Composer
Frederick Delius
Performer
Nathan Williamson
21 Prelude 03:11

Track
21

Title
Prelude
Duration
03:11
Composer
Frederick Delius
Performer
Nathan Williamson
22 Duet 02:46

Track
22

Title
Duet
Duration
02:46
Composer
Frederick Delius
Performer
Nathan Williamson
23 The Ring of Bone, Op. 106 10:16

Track
23

Title
The Ring of Bone, Op. 106
Duration
10:16
Composer
Elisabeth Lutyens
Performer
Nathan Williamson
24 Litany 06:57

Track
24

Title
Litany
Duration
06:57
Composer
Anthony Herschel Hill
Performer
Nathan Williamson
25 Toccata 05:21

Track
25

Title
Toccata
Duration
05:21
Composer
Anthony Herschel Hill
Performer
Nathan Williamson