Jonathan Ellson: Teacher - Musical Director

For solo piano, "An Antique Suite" grew out of a desire to explore baroque dances as used in keyboard suites of the era, but try and place a contemporary spin on them. How well I have succeeded in that is up to you, but I hope they are fun to play, if nothing else. The work is in seven movements, comprising an Intrada, an Allemande, a Courante, a Sarabande, a Bourreé, a Gavotte and a Gigue

Originally released on Bandcamp for New Year 2018, "Twelve Preludes" is the first set of two planned to cover every major and minor key. Some are more of a challenge than others, but all are musically fulfilling while presenting certain technical challenges. They are in a wide variety of styles. Perusal score is of F major and B minor only.

"Three Myths" was written in response to getting to know the "Skazki" (Fairy Tales) for solo piano by Nicolai Medtner (1880-1951). They sparked in me an idea to do something similar and so these pieces were conceived. They present an impression rather than a full description of their subject matter and each can be interpreted in many different ways. Ultimately, each of these Myths could refer to whatever the performer or an audience wants it to.

One day, during the national lockdown due to the novel coronavirus, I took a pencil and manuscript paper and simply began writing. Not really aware of what I was actually creating, an idea grew for a small suite of piano pieces of intermediate difficulty. Two days later, this work was the result. It has been polished, but most of the changes from that initial handwritten score have been fairly superficial.

"Three Character Portraits" grew out of a long-standing desire to create a piece that drew its inspiration from literary characters. With Iago, I also had another idea to incorporate a quote from Otello (Verdi), specifically the unison fanfare from Iago's Credo from the start of Act II.

Choosing other characters that contrasted with Iago took a few days, but I eventually settled on the fussy, yet ultimately warm-hearted Pantalone from the Italian Commedia dell'arte and the tragic Nancy, from Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist.

Snowscape, written over the winter of 2005-6 is intended to conjure up the cold, smothering and isloating effects of the time following a heavy snowfall. It uses two main textures to achieve this: closely clashing chords high up in the piano's register and two different regular movements, one a flourish, (the sliding of snow from rooftops or the building of drifts perhaps), the other gentle but insistent, depicting falling snow.

Snowscape (2005-6) c.6'

Perusal Score and Recording