Prelude to a Gin and Tonic
I had the silly title before I had written the piece, but that’s sometimes the way in which inspiration works. I sat down to write something romantic, something very European, and something quite challenging to play, that was gentle on the ear but rewarding. And what’s more rewarding than a G&T after a bit of hard work.
And while writing this was oddly quite hard work, it was fun. I’ve never written anything quite like it before probably because my skills as a pianist are borderline in terms of being able to convey my meaning. The liberation came with being comfortable to get someone else to play it. This happened when a good friend of mine, Andy Cheek, sat down and played my piece Walk Along a Mountain Brook (later in this album), a piece I had written sometime earlier, and really struggled to learn well enough to play convincingly. Andy sat and play sight read it on my baby grand with sufficient conviction to bring a few discrete tears to my eyes, and something in the back of my head said it was OK to write for the piano beyond my capability.
Sure, I can play this, but not like Polina, who was given the score, the scantest of direction and completely free rein. I just adored what she did with it – turning from a bunch of dots and ideas into a charming bit of music. Definitely worthy a swift double.
4am Nocturne
After the success of Polina’s interpretation of my Prelude to a Gin and Tonic, I was inspired to put together some more piano works and create this album. I had a few bits to hand already, but motivated by her musicality, I wanted to write some more lyrically romantic shorts, in the vein of Chopin and Listz.
The idea behind this Nocturne came to me whilst wandering around in the middle of the night when I should have been sound asleep. Restless, and unable to return to whatever it was I was dreaming of, I was alternately plodding and staring out the back window at the very clear night sky. This tune was just there, lining up half a dozen stars like some dodgy astrological chart. The rest was just writing down the notes in some harmonically acceptable format and adding a bit of structure.
And asking Polina to play it. And once again, she added some fantastic musicality to my score. What I find particularly outstanding is how she managed to convey such an atmosphere of incredible calm and beauty, when she was actually recording this in Kharkiv, as and when the power was available between incoming rounds of Russian rockets. This is night music is every sense of the word, capturing two very different nights on two very different sides of Europe.
Guided Walks On The Piano
Guided Walks On The Piano is a suite of three parts, and is the earliest composition in this collection. Started in about 2014, Walk In The Park was my answer to Debussy’s Arabesque No 1 – one of those pieces that every budding pianist has to learn, struggles, but never forgets once the muscle memory has it. In fact, it was the less well known second Arabesque that I played during the signing of the register of my great friends Chris and Lisa Green in the cathedral-like Luton Parish Church – a truly nerve racking experience in front of such an attentive and large audience, and about two inches away from an overly enthusiastic teenager with a video camera that I only noticed with great surprise over my shoulder at the top of a run up the keyboard. I just about recovered.
So my Walk In The Park is all about cross-rhythms – triplets over duplets – theoretically played with such aplomb that the listener doesn’t notice how stifling tricky it is. And tricky indeed it is as the emphasis shifts from being on the beat to being ephemeral. Just like the first arabesque, it relies heavily on muscle memory and switching off the logical bit of the brain. The idea behind the piece is chilling – as the Italians would say, fare un passaggiata – it’s all about strolling in such a way as to get attention without having to do anything to get attention.
The second piece, Walk On The Moon, is much looser. Thematically linked only by the idea of the tone poem describing very loosely the place where one might walk, this one is a low-gravity stroll. There is no atmosphere to speak of, so we have to make our own.
I find it interesting that since Guided Walks on the Piano was first published on SoundCloud, it is Walk On The Moon that has attracted the most plays. I’ve always considered it the weakest of the three pieces in the suite, and have put it down to the fact the piece is named in such a way as to attract attention. Funny old (off) world.
The last of the three in the suite, is Walk Along A Mountain Brook, and is the one I was most proud of as a piece of writing. Probably even more significantly, this took me several years to be comfortable enough with my performance to share it publicly.
The tone poem here describes a mountain path following a stream trickling down something rocky and beautiful. My stream is probably in Snowdonia in Wales, because that’s where most of my childhood memories of mountain streams come from, but yours could be anywhere that works for you. At least in Wales I know that it will have rained recently and there will be plenty of water in the brook.
This stream gathers momentum with more water as it travels down the mountain side. It tumbles and turns, it pools and splashes with energy and freshness. And then it pools long enough for a picnic before tumbling off again towards the coast.
I was so pleased when I had learned to play this one. There’s a copy that sits on my piano alongside Arabesque No 1, Clair De Lune and Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues as my get–out-grumpy-git-mode pieces.
Shooting Star Nocturne
The third piece that I wrote with Polina in mind was another one inspired by the night sky. It is a response to all the bad-news stories we got to hear in the UK about the ongoing troubles in Ukraine. A shooting star should be something to look at in awe, rather than a barrage of destruction. So in answer, I was trying to reclaim the night sky as a thing of beauty not fear.
I never shared this motivation with Polina when I asked her to play the piece. Whether she interpreted anything of that in the writing, I’ll never know. For me, she is painting the night sky with a fine brush when she plays those pin prick notes again those velvety chords.
Gold Piano Suite
Sitting in my study, working with the windows open, I was distracted by the song of a treeful of goldfinches next door. This is fairly unusual, and I of course had to stop to listen to their short calls boisterously claiming ownership of a couple of branches.
That call stuck, and indeed became the theme within what became the third movement of the Gold Piano Suite, Goldfinches. Look it up on the Merlin app, and you’ll notice I should really be crediting a bunch of little birds for composition.
What do goldfinches particularly like to nibble on? Teazles. (Various spellings are legitimate, and this is the one I landed on at the time). So, the slightly spikey first movement appeared from when the finches would land on and tear apart.
And from that, I had a theme to run with. Goldfinches and teazles are both a sort of gold-y colour, and teazles grow in scrubby areas, which in the dry months of summer can look decidedly golden too. Hence, the Gold suite, all inspired by a bit of tweeting.
REM Nocturne
The last of the four pieces that Polina plays here was again written with her in mind. I was looking to exploit that smooth elegance she could pull off in those long runs and phrases. This is another night-time inspiration: This time it’s dreams. Dreams of what things should be. Dreams of running free in the woods and fields without fear. Dreams of nature. Dreams of easier times returning.
And because it’s about dreaming, you can hear the dreamer’s eyes darting left and right as their dreams take them to these safe places.
Back To Sleep
Back To Sleep was written as a really simple nursery tune, a lullaby. Couldn’t think of a better way to close this collection.
Players
Polina Chorna played Prelude To A Gin and Tonic, 4am Nocturne, Shooting Star Nocturne, REM Nocturne
Steve Chowne played all other tracks.
Mixing by Luca Zara.
Steve Chowne Music 