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Sonata for Piano (1993) |
solo piano - 20'
Commissioned by Peter O’Hagan, with funds made available by the Arts Council of Great Britain.
First performance: 28 March 1993, Purcell Room, London, Peter O’Hagan, piano.
Peter O’Hagan’s championship of contemporary music, together with his virtuosic artistry, gave me a wonderful opportunity to explore the piano with absolute freedom. Consequently the Sonata is a mosaic of contrasts. The substance is, however, intensely concentrated in its adoption of a three-note motive from Berg’s Three Orchestral Pieces – B natural, G sharp, G natural. These intervals form the substructure of all the motivic material.
Although there are three basic sections, the work is in one continuous movement, ranging from concentrated stillness to rhapsodic virtuosity. Unlike the traditional sonata, all aspects of the whole are introduced as fragments at the outset, the intention being to present the contrasting motives in sharp relief before the music develops and unfolds.
Edwin Roxburgh