International Piano

The album of Sam Hayden’s piano music features a comparable stylistic terrain to the Ferneyhough release (MSV 28615). Hayden (born 1968) studied with Michael Finnissy, as well as Jonathan Harvey and Louis Andriessen. The album is dominated by Hayden’s monumental seven-movement cycle Becomings (Das Werden) I-VII (2016-18), the most ambitious and demanding work here. It was premiered by Pace in 2019. The title refers to the sense of ‘becoming’ advocated by Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, famous for his remark that ‘No one ever steps in the same river twice’, for whom the world is in constant flux. The composition contrasts hyper-energetic material with moments of relative calm.

There are two shorter works, …still time… (1990) and Fragment (After Losses) (2003), plus the more substantial Piano Moves (1990) for amplified piano. Hayden comments in an online interview that ‘Piano Moves is more gradual, process-driven music (minimalistic in some ways), and …still time… [has] more in common with complexity’ – it was written in 1990 while he was studying with Michael Finnissy. According to Hayden, the subtle electronic enhancement of Piano Moves is not intended to make the piano sound overtly ‘electronic’: ‘Compression is used to narrow the dynamic range… Some reverberation is also used, extending the natural decay of the instrument.’ The ‘moves’ are the series of relatively sudden harmonic changes in which the hands move to the piano’s extreme registers. Hayden’s music is perhaps less individual than Ferneyhough’s but will still appeal to more adventurous listeners.

—Andy Hamilton