Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Matthew Hindson is one of Australia’s most dynamic, successful, and widely-performed composers. His atmospheric soundworld is both immediate and direct, and his orchestral and ballet music have been performed by many of the world’s leading orchestras.
For his latest project, Hindson has turned to the piano. Sad Piano offers 13 captivating solo pieces, published last year by Faber Music, and recently followed by a recording featuring his compatriot, the pianist Andrea Lam.
I have been dipping into Faber’s handsome publication for several months, but with the arrival of Lam’s mesmerising recording, this is a perfect time to take a closer look…
Captivating Pieces
Seeing a score called “Sad Piano” on my music desk has certainly elicited a few wry chuckles from studio visitors, but as Hindson explains in his introduction to the book,
“I started this collection during the Covid-19 lockdown, when I felt an intense need to write music that was personal and overtly emotional. Each Sad Piano piece explores a different emotion or frame of mind: from inner fury, to love and sentimentality, to the resilience many of us needed to get through lockdown…
The resulting pieces appeared to fall within the ever popular streaming trend of “sad piano music”: music that seems sad or melancholy in mood, yet which has the paradoxical effect of making the listener feel comforted or uplifted.”
The titles of the pieces leave little doubt as to their emotive intent:
- Longing (Desire)
- Luminescence
- Obsession
- Resiliance
- Isolation
- Love
- Attraction
- Goodbye
- Aftermath
- Memories
- innocence
- Lullaby
- Nostalgia
Andrea Lam’s recording is available on all streaming services, and listening is obviously a must. Here’s the YouTube link, so that you can enjoy the eleven tracks currently available (Obsession and Isolation will follow soon), while scrolling down to read the rest of my review:
These are consummately crafted, and refreshingly original pieces. As I played through them I was frequently and pleasantly surprised by the direction they took, which seems to me an impressive compositional feat in such a deeply furrowed musical field.
While leading composers in this genre such as Ludovico Einaudi and Max Richter typically write music which is as accessible for the intermediate pianist to play as it is for audiences to engage with, Hindson’s pieces are notably more complex, in both their musical aesthetic and technical demands.
As such, this collection will especially appeal to more advanced players wanting to explore the more challenging end of the genre. Many of the pieces include complex figurations and filigree, require attentive pedalling, stretches of a tenth, and a superbly controlled technical approach.
There is a wonderful payoff: the quality of the music certainly rewards our efforts! Standout pieces for me include Longing, Attraction, and the deeply affecting Goodbye, which sounds confoundingly simple for a piece actually composed in 5/8 time.
Meanwhile, the memorable melody, ingenious texture, and subtle interplay of major and minor tonality in Aftermath offers a glimpse of genius.
The publication itself is in Faber Music’s standard house style, with a tastefully presented (if perhaps overly sombre) matt card cover, opening to an 80-page book, bound with staples and printed on white paper.
The notation is given a clean engraving, includes plenty of expressive details, but offers no fingering suggestions. In addition to the scores, contents page, and the composer’s brief Foreword, three pages are given over to full-page black-and-white photographs taken from the recording session.
Closing Thoughts
Sad Piano offers a wealth of beautifully conceived and emotionally intelligent music that succeeds in rising far above most of the ambient piano music in the “new classical” genre. These deeply rewarding pieces seem guaranteed to speak abundantly to players and audiences alike.
The pandemic was, of course, neither the beginning nor the end of our collective trials and traumas; correspondingly, the internal terrain of Hindson’s music speaks to our continuing human experience. These are compositions of enduring value, and the whole album is a balm to the soul.
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