New Classics

For most of his life Eric Craven has kept a very low profile, concentrating on his teaching career and quietly developing his ‘non-prescriptive’ composing method, a sort of aleatory style but which allows the performer varying degrees of freedom. His earlier cycle of short pieces, ‘SET’, was recorded after Craven was persuaded by leading pianists to make his work available. Highly praised, that technique is shown again to great effect in the ‘Pieces for Pianists’, producing music that is varied, interesting, but perfectly accessible for listener and performer. The composer states that his hope is ‘to reward any pianist with even modest ability with immediate success’ while also providing a challenge to more accomplished pianists to explore new territory.

Mary Dullea is an Irish pianist based in London, who enjoys a busy career as a soloist and chamber musician and regularly performs and broadcasts in many countries. She is also Reader in Music at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her exceptional discography demonstrates her support as a champion of new music. Her pianism and musicality as well as remarkable virtuosity make her an ideal interpreter of Eric Craven’s joyous, playful and satisfying music which, as she says, ‘will prove endlessly rewarding’. This collection is the first of two volumes of world premiere recordings available on CD and in HD digital audio.

Each of the 25 pieces, simply named 1 to 25, has its individual charm and miniaturist precision, by turns reflective, ethereal, authoritative and questioning. Detailed notes on this adventurous music and album concept by Michael Quinn are included in a booklet that also has biographies of both pianist and composer.

‘Every note, every phrase must be there for a purpose. An immediacy has to be established. There has to be a clarity of ideas and a clarity of the expression of those ideas.’ – Eric Craven.

—John Pitt