B&B
I began this series of works for solo piano in 2009; a first volume was published in 2024.
They are intended as etudes not only for the (advanced) performer but also for me as composer. Not possessing particularly skilled pianistic “chops” myself, these etudes were conceived as a means of gaining experiences in composing for the keyboard, paying homage in the process to an array of different composers from across the centuries. Sometimes this resulted in a focus on very particular technical or harmonic idiosyncrasies or innovations found in specific works, at other times on a more general sense of the language, accent or sweep of a particular compositional voice or even reflecting on the life stories and personal traits of the composers themselves.
In most cases they are, not surprisingly, written in homage to recognised pianist-composers such as Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms and Kurtág. With these composers, their keyboard works unarguably display a special significance within their entire bodies of work across their entire lives, often leading the way not only in their own personal compositional development but also in the development of composing for the keyboard more generally. There are a couple of others included, however, eg. Lutoslawski and Janácek, who aren’t especially known for their solo piano catalogues but whose output in this genre has nevertheless always fascinated me.
Hommage à Janácek is the earliest of my piano etudes, written for Italian pianist Emanuele Torquati in 2009 for a Janácek-themed recital programme. While far better known for his operas and orchestral works, Janácek’s relatively lean oeuvre of piano music is nonetheless full of great character and poignancy, his harmonic world always distinctively his own. My etude examines his masterly use of small repeated cells in creating not only energy and heightened dramatic tension but also moments of inward reflection as found, for example, in his suite, In the Mists.
Hommage à Bach was originally commissioned by London’s Wigmore Hall for Angela Hewitt’s Bach Book (2010), for which ‘short new piano pieces that are either Bach transcriptions or pieces directly inspired by Bach’ were being sought. I took Ms Hewitt very much at her word by providing one of each, an original prelude and a chorale transcription. Both movements draw on relatively early Bach works: the Prelude on the youthful exuberance and mechanics of his keyboard toccatas (written following his famous pilgrimage to hear Buxtehude play in Lübeck in 1705) while the Chorale is a transcription of a particularly beautiful chorale, Gute Nacht, o Wesen from the longest and richest of Bach’s funeral motets, Jesu, Meine Freude from 1723.
My Hommage à Kurtág also began life as a Wigmore commission, premiered in 2011. This is the only work in the set where the inspiration has been my own personal experiences of meeting and conversing with a living composer. György Kurtág was a vital early mentor for me during his time as composer-in-residence with the Berlin Philharmonic in the mid-1990’s (while I was still a member of the orchestra’s viola section). His imploring manner, hands clasped, pleading for ever more intensity during the extraordinary chamber music sessions I experienced with him lies behind the rising-falling cluster motive heard throughout the piece.
Hommage à Brahms, premiered in 2014, pays homage not only to Brahms the composer but also to his life story. This set of three movements was conceived to be performed as interludes between Brahms’ four final solo piano pieces of op. 119 from 1893. In this instance I drew particular inspiration from various accompanying textures and figurations found in Brahms’ Duo Sonatas and Lieder. Taking into account aspects of Brahms’ personal life, specifically his long and complicated relationship with Clara Schumann, these pieces emerge as much as anything from the concept of the line or voice that’s absent, the vacant space in his life, the person not by his side. Growing initially then out of what sound like accompaniment figurations, they nevertheless take on lives of their own, shining differing lights and shadings on Brahms’ poignantly melancholic op. 119 pieces.
Hommage à Lutoslawski was composed for US pianist Gloria Cheng’s tribute project in memory of the American composer Steven Stucky, a wonderful colleague with whom I shared a mutual love of the works of Witold Lutoslawski. Again, while not especially known for his piano works, a reference to Lutoslawski’s music seemed a fitting way to pay my respects to Steve. My brief toccata-esque piece takes as its starting point a striking, running-triplet figuration drawn from the (four-handed) piano part of the Polish master’s 3rd Symphony and closes with a counter-intuitively soft and distant quotation of that remarkable work’s closing “big tune”.
Music for Drakenstein is in two parts. Originally conceived in 2018 for a later cancelled memorial performance that was to take place in Drakenstein Prison in South Africa (where Nelson Mandela spent the last part of his long imprisonment), this work received its belated world premiere in London in 2024. The first movement, Tallying, is inspired by the legendary way in which prisoners have traditionally marked up their days spent in confinement by means of lines etched upon the walls. Four stubbornly repeated crotchets stand for the vertical lines; the ensuing, fifth horizontal line crossing them is dissipated in rambling ornaments, as if already setting off into the wider world. The following movement, Envoy, takes up that longed-for freedom in a fleet-of-foot scherzo that pays homage to Ludwig van Beethoven, referencing one of my very favourite Beethoven piano sonata movements from his op. 27, No. 1 as well as brief hints of his liberty-affirming “prison” opera, Fidelio.
My most recent addition to this etude collection is Faustian Pact from 2023, a homage to that most mercurial of pianist-composers, Franz Liszt. Through my years as an orchestral musician, encounters with Liszt’s music were largely limited to warhorses such as his piano concertos and Les Préludes. My first experience of his Faust Symphony certainly also got my full attention. Spending time more recently studying works such as the Transcendental Etudes, the B Minor Piano Sonata and his enigmatic, late Nuages gris has been an ear-, eye- and mind-opening experience. My Faustian Pact pays homage to this marvellously inventive mind in a musical argument that touches on Liszt’s harmonic quirkiness and originality as well as his daringly phosphorescent pianism and surprising moments of mystical reflection.
The volume of Homage Etudes received its first public performance as a set in London’s Wigmore Hall on 20th April, 2024 with British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor as soloist. While the print publication features my works in their chronological order of composition, workshopping the pieces with Benjamin prior to his recital revealed an ideal concert order for pianists who may wish to present them as a complete collection.
My thanks to all the wonderful pianists who have instigated the creation and first performances of these works over the past fifteen years: Emanuele Torquati, Angela Hewitt, Piers Lane, Emanuel Ax, Gloria Cheng and Benjamin Grosvenor. Additional thanks go to Benjamin Grosvenor for his premiere performance of the complete collection and for his editorial oversight of the works.
Brett Dean, 2024