Shop Now

New Classics

Liverpool-born John McCabe (1939-2015) was a renowned pianist (a Haydn specialist and supporter of many contemporary composers) as well as a composer of very fine music in many different forms, including symphonies, ballets and solo works for the piano. A prolific composer from an early age, he wrote thirteen symphonies by the time he was eleven. After studies at the Royal Manchester College of Music and in Munich he embarked on a career as both a composer and a virtuoso pianist. He also served as principal of the London College of Music during the 1980s and was described by classical music critic Guy Rickards as ‘one of Britain’s finest composers in the past half-century, and a pianist of formidable gifts and wide-ranging sympathies’. He wrote guides to the music of Haydn, Bartók and Rachmaninoff, as well as a book on contemporary English composer Alan Rawsthorne, and was awarded the CBE for his services to music. In 1985, McCabe visited EMI Studios in Sydney, Australia, to make this album of music by Australian and American composers. However for several reasons it was put to one side and when the studio closed it was believed that all copies were lost. Last year a cassette copy was found, transferred and remastered. It is a wonderful collection of works, performed with McCabe’s usual dazzling virtuosity and deep musicality. The album comprises works of differing styles best summarized as post-modernist individual, inspired, contemporary but not unfriendly to audiences; some are impressionist such as the title track by Peter Sculthorpe, or jazz-inspired (George Rochberg’s Carnival Music) and all are fine additions to McCabe’s recorded legacy.