Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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I first encountered the piano music of contemporary British composer Edward Gregson when I heard a recording made by Murray McLachlan a year or two ago, and I was immediately won over by the variety, appeal, and obvious craftsmanship.
A highlight of that recording, and now available as a single piece published by Novello, A Song for Sue is a tender, jazz-infused miniature suitable for early advanced players around Grade 8, and sure to bring delight to many…
A Song for Sue
Edward Gregson was born in Sunderland, Co Durham, England, in 1945. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 1967, having studied piano and composition with Alan Bush. Like his teacher (who I met and played for as a teenager), Gregson combines modernity with irrepressible harmonic logic in his music, and it has a uniformly accessible appeal.
Gregson has enjoyed a career as a composer of international standing. His music has been performed, broadcast, and recorded worldwide. He has written orchestral, chamber, instrumental and choral music, as well as making major contributions to the wind and brass repertoire. He has also written music for the theatre, film, and television.
A Song for Sue is based on an early piece, written as an engagement present for his wife-to-be. In a short note included in the Novello publication, the composer explains,
“In 1966, when I was a 3rd year student at London’s Royal Academy of Music, I composed and premiered my Concertante for Piano and Brass Band, a work dedicated to Sue, my wife-to-be. Some 55 years later, whilst preparing for a recording of my Complete Music for Solo Piano, I decided to make an arrangement of the main theme from the 2nd movement of that work for inclusion on the recording. Thus A Song for Sue was born and is also dedicated to the love of my life!”
Here the lush romanticism and expansive harmonies with light-bluesy touches lend the piece the cinematic colours of Maurice Jarré’s best scores, or even (the later) John Barry.
For the recording, the composer himself took to the piano stool, and as one expects he proves to be a natural and effective performer of this gorgeous music:
Playing through the score myself for the first time, I initially found the left hand figuration a little tricky, but with only a little practice had mastered it and found the piece as a whole superbly suited to the instrument, and an absolute joy to play.
Novello’s sheet music publication appears in their standard house style, and is thus a simple affair with a glossy card cover, There are 8 white pages within, and the score itself takes up five of these (the first of the two page turns is a little awkward, the second ideal). Notation is cleanly engraved, nicely spaced. There are no fingering suggestions.
A Song for Sue would make a lovely ‘own-choice’ piece in a Grade 8 performance, and is sure to be a popular addition in concerts, piano clubs and recital programmes. I am thrilled to see it in print, plan to perform it myself at our next local event, and anticipate that many others will take up this piece with enthusiasm.
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