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Friday 10 November 7.30pm
The Nocturne

Conway Hall  £10/£6 concessions

Jonathan Powell, piano

Programme

Chopin Nocturne op.62 no.1
Scriabin Poème-nocturne
Sorabji Gulistan

Interval

Keith Barnard Angelic Nocturne

Performer

Jonathan Powell is a composer, pianist and writer on music. He studied the piano with Denis Matthews and Sulamita Aronovsky and has recorded for both CD and radio; last year he was the artistic director of and performer in concerts in the Barbican's St Petersburg festival. In 1994 Powell literally smuggled scores from the Moscow Conservatory library across snow-bound streets to photocopying shops in order to get the material out of a country where discussion of many composers had long been discouraged. This year, he has played in Russia, and will later co-ordinate and play on a third CD (for ASV), record works by Ciurlionis and other Baltic composers for the BBC and present the cycle of Scriabin's sonatas in an important London venue. He has recently been invited to record these sonatas and works by Samuil Feinberg by an American company. Since the late 1980s, his own compositions have been heard in England at the Huddersfield, Brighton and Bath festivals as well as in Europe, Asia and the US. Performers of his work include the Composers' Ensemble, Nicolas Hodges, Stephen Gutman, the Arditti Quartet and IXION, with whom he appeared at the 1999 Cutting Edge series. This year, three of his works the Barcarolla for piano, Sirenland for violin and piano, and Saturnine for ensemble will be featured on commercial recordings. He was awarded a doctorate from the University of Cambridge for a dissertation concerning Scriabin and his influence on Russian music; his articles on Futurism, Soviet music and composers such as Scriabin, Krein, Obukhov, Stanchinsky and Feinberg will be appearing in the revised New Grove. He is currently writing an extended survey entitled Russian Music of the Silver Age that will be published next year.

'A serious and challenging young pianist, one whose programme indicated a commitment to the cutting edge of virtuosity ... . Strongly grasped rhythms and bright resonances in ... a ferociously gripping performance'
(Paul Griffiths, The Times, January 1991)

'Feinberg and Krein wrote works that rank among the greatest of the decade. With Powell, we get to experience a revelation. The vitality and finely judged tonal colouration of his playing allows us to understand how Scriabin did open up an entirely distinctive and novel sense of beauty. We are in Powell's debt for this presentation' [re Largo 5136 ‚ Krein CD]
(David Shields, Billboard, March 1998)

'A great virtuoso'
(Miriam Ignatyeva, Kultura, 6-12 June 2000)

Composers

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988) is one of the most remarkable figures in our century's music. Born in England, his father a Zoroastrian (Parsi) engineer and his mother apparently a Spanish-Sicilian soprano, his education, both musical and general, was mainly private, this all destined Sorabji to be something of an outsider to the British musical establishment but failed to discourage an astonishingly productive career as a composer, critic and essayist spanning some seventy years. Best known for his vast contribution to keyboard literature, his works include three vast organ symphonies and more than sixty piano pieces of all shapes and sizes whose durations range from a few seconds to many hours. Almost all his music was written at breakneck pace straight into final draft; the resulting manuscripts are generally legible but impractical as performance documents. Sixteen were published during his lifetime, however and more than thirty new editions have since appeared.
© Alastair Hinton

Keith Barnard studied composition with Arnold Cooke (himself a student of Paul Hindemith). He is a composer who believes in the unique sonic power of cosmic sound, and the healing colour-energy inherent in each musical note, melody, harmony and counterpoint. He feels that music is a spiritual manifestation of the sacred word, given to humanity by God. He has composed piano, vocal, chamber, choral and orchestral music, as well as a two-section chamber opera, The Healing Angels. He has taken part in numerous concerts and recitals of his music in the UK and abroad. He is also a poet.

Notes

Angelic Nocturne: Composed in February 1997, this work is cast in an extended rondo form. Attuned to the resonance of G.....the deep-blue healing ray. The tranquility of the music passes through intervals of the "third" and into frequent sequential material supported by tremelandos in the bass. The recurring themes and the hidden mathematical precision of repeated octaves develop into the stillness and hypnotic quality of "seventh" chords in root and inversion.