piano

Brahms was uncharacteristically pleased with the trio, writing to his publisher, “You have not yet had such a beautiful trio from me and very likely have not published its equal in the last ten years.”

Richard Meale’s Coruscations is ‘…dazzling and remarkably lyrical music.’

“Richard Meale’s ‘Coruscations’ is a cult favourite among Australian pianists. I’ve lost count of how many effusive conversations I’ve had with fellow Meale enthusiasts about this scintillating and elusive tour de force.”

“…Here we get the composer at his most light-hearted – you can almost hear in these dances a young Shostakovich playing the piano to accompany silent films,” writes Angus McPherson.

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In the Second Piano Concerto and other creative output of that period, Rachmaninoff displays “…a new assuredness of style…an almost overwhelming abundance of melody,” writes Scott Davie.

“The weaving, soaring violin melody that opens Australian composer Arthur Benjamin’s Sonatina for Violin and Piano immediately beguiles the listener and attests to Hubert Howells’ description of Benjamin as ‘an unashamed Romantic,’ writes Angus McPherson.

Bartók incorporates “elements of Hungarian peasant songs into his own, complex harmonic language,” writes Angus McPherson.

“The guitar makes the dreams weep,” Poulenc inscribed above the central movement of his Violin Sonata, completed under Nazi occupation.

“In keeping with the 19th-century ‘Romance’ form, the pieces are short and lyrical, and the first in the set is particularly tender – even melancholy – with the violin and piano equal, empathetic partners,” writes Angus McPherson.