Session Pianist
I’m always happy to lend my skills as a pianist to any collaborators. Whether you have a piano-specific passage in mind, or need help whipping up something appropriate, me and my Baldwin Model M or Nord Stage 3 can add a little razzle-dazzle to your album or other creative project.
British
Parlor Music
In this sample set, I look a few short pieces written by seldom-performed British composers (in the U.S. at least) who I feel strongly about sharing with the world. Both virtuosos in their time, Cyril Scott and Herbert Howells are stylistically distinct—both from each other and from the broader trends of early 20th Century modernists. These idea-machines pumped out piano miniatures with the regularity of modern-day pop songs (and/or short-form content), in a time when folks were hungry for fun, innovative, digestible music to fill their parlors. So take a break from sonatas—and from doomscrolling—and go back to the scrolling of a century ago... if you have the piano rolls, that is.
If you don't, let's start with my take on "Danse Negre" by composer Cyril Scott (at his most effervescent) . . .
Mazurka
Op. 67 No. 1
by Cyril Scott
For years, I've been fascinated with the miniatures of Cyril Scott—a relic of the oft-overlooked turn-of-the-century British piano repertory. Widely circulated in its day, this "Mazurka" has Scott bringing a touch of Edwardian gaiety to the familiar Polish dance form most associated with Chopin.
Procession
by Herbert Howells
Better known for its orchestration in 1922, the solo piano version of "Procession" dates from 1917, and shows composer Herbert Howells' flair for pomp and imagery in a more secular context, outside the Anglican liturgical repertoire for which he is well-regarded.
...Although, if you listen for it, you might hear a motif of church bells clamoring in the B section.
Water-Wagtail
(Bergeronnette) Op. 71 No. 3
by Cyril Scottb
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Back to Cyril Scott, this piece plays like a vignette of the English countryside, with our main character, the "pied wagtail" depicted in all manner of aerial acrobatics: climbs, courtship, nose-dives, hovering, hunting, and potentially... narrow escape? You decide.