Steps (piano cycle series) is a set of large-scale piano works written by British composer Peter Seabourne (b.1960), currently standing at 10 volumes (196 pieces) of approximately 9 hours total duration. Each cycle is based around a theme and comprises a sequence of often poetically entitled movements.
The first volume (2001-4) marked the composer's return to composition after a 12-year silence. [5] Originally simply a series of standalone pieces, it was only subsequently gathered into an anthology. However, from the second volume onwards the works are conceived as integrated single spans in the manner of Janacek's On an Overgrown Path, or Schumann's Carnaval.
The Italian CD label Sheva has so far recorded volumes 1–5 with pianists Minjeong Shin, Giovanni Santini, Michael Bell, Fabio Menchetti and Alessandro Viale. [6] Volume 6 was released in May 2022 by Konstantin Lifschitz on Willowhayne Records, and 7-10 are scheduled for recording during 2023-4. The CDs have been reviewed in Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, Musical Opinion, International Piano, Piano News, Hudební rozhledy and many other magazines. Numerous live performances have taken place in Europe, Armenia, The United States of America and Japan, including by Alessandro Viale, Fabio Menchetti, Konstantin Lifschitz, Minjeong Shin, Michael Bell, Bethel Balge, Giuseppe Modugno, Haruko Seki, Chantal Balestri, Simone Rugani, Andrea Emanuele, Ettore Strangio, Giordano De Nisi, Emanuele Stracchi, Paolo Rinaldi, Barbara Panzarella, Giulia Grassi, Francesca Fierro, Isabella Gori, Letitia Amodio, Francesca Lauri, Sarah Vella, Daphne Delicata, Alvaro Siculiana, Julian Chan, Tsovinar Suflyan and Mikhail Shilyaev.
The composer's musical language is loosely tonal but is often stretched to include elements of polytonality, modality and free atonality. In Musical Opinion, Richard Whitehouse wrote of "a demonstrably Romantic rhetoric with an always audible and yet never facile approach to tonality". [7] A striking feature throughout is the use of rhythm, described by one reviewer as "amazingly inventive" [of Volume 2]. [8] This involves a widespread, subtle stretching of both individual beats and metre giving the music a feeling of flux and ongoing rubato.
Volume 1: An anthology for piano (2001-4):
Volume 2: Studies of Invention (2007):
Volume 3: Arabesques (2012):
Volume 4: Libro di Canti Italiano (2011)
Volume 5: Sixteen Scenes Before a Crucifixion (2014)
Volume 6: Toccatas and Fantasias (2017)
Volume 7: Dances on the Head of a Pin (2019)
Volume 8: My Song in October (2021)
Volume 9: Les Fleurs de la Maladie (2021)
Volume 10: In a Grain of Sand (2023)
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The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is a piece of organ music written, according to its oldest extant sources, by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). The piece opens with a toccata section, followed by a fugue that ends in a coda. Scholars differ as to when it was composed. It could have been as early as c. 1704. Alternatively, a date as late as the 1750s has been suggested. To a large extent, the piece conforms to the characteristics deemed typical of the north German organ school of the Baroque era with divergent stylistic influences, such as south German characteristics.
Toccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers. Less frequently, the name is applied to works for multiple instruments.
Wanda Aleksandra Landowska was a Polish harpsichordist and pianist whose performances, teaching, writings and especially her many recordings played a large role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in the early 20th century. She was the first person to record Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations on the harpsichord in 1933. She became a naturalized French citizen in 1938.
Jill Crossland is an English pianist, born in Yorkshire. She studied with Ryszard Bakst at Chetham's School of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and with Paul Badura-Skoda in Vienna. She has a preference for Baroque and Classical periods of the repertoire, with a focus on the music by Johann Sebastian Bach, playing it on the piano. She has performed his Well-Tempered Clavier from memory since her student years.
Johann Jakob Froberger was a German Baroque composer, keyboard virtuoso, and organist. Among the most famous composers of the era, he was influential in developing the musical form of the suite of dances in his keyboard works. His harpsichord pieces are highly idiomatic and programmatic.
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Ferruccio Busoni discography chronicles the list of releases by the music artist.
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Kenneth Leighton was a British composer and pianist. His compositions include church and choral music, pieces for piano, organ, cello, oboe and other instruments, chamber music, concertos, symphonies, and an opera. He had various academic appointments in the Universities of Leeds, Oxford and, primarily, Edinburgh.
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Konstantin Yakovlevich Lifschitz is a Russian pianist of Jewish descent.