Release Date: 26 January 2024
Label: Prima Facie
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 7141148050373
Genres: Classical
Description
Few things could have prepared society for the global pandemic that gripped the world from 2020-21. From that darkness, however, there emerged numerous avenues for creative reflection. Musicians suddenly had a lot of time on their hands, and an opportunity to develop their art in new and ambitious directions. During this period, Portuguese composer Pedro Faria Gomes, whose imaginative and communicative music combines clear originality with a confident respect for tradition, turned to the piano. His initial idea was to write a variation on two sets of four notes. Faria shared the resulting movement with pianist Kenneth Hamilton, his colleague at Cardiff University School of Music. Hamilton was impressed with the piece, and a plan evolved to compose a more elaborate work. This developed into the ten movement, strikingly thought-provoking Suite J--the 'J' refers to Faria's daughter Joana--recorded for the first time on this disc.
A little while later, Faria's second child, Daniel, was born. This in turn was the inspiration for the charmingly witty Sonatina, a gracefully concise companion piece to the Suite, also conceived to be premiered and recorded by Kenneth Hamilton. Both works pay heartfelt homage to historical genres--the Baroque Suite, the Classical Sonatina--while drawing inspiration from a web of allusion and quotation more redolent of the Romantic piano music of Robert Schumann. Accordingly, the title of the album--Scenes from Childhood--is gratefully borrowed from Schumann's collection of the same name. This is nevertheless noAlbum for the Young, rather a nostalgically adult reflection on early childhood, and a moving, modern meditation on the music of earlier eras.
Two of the most remarkable compositions to come out of the pandemic. Hamilton is a major contributor to the album's success…[he] offers restrained yet sensitive readings that let the details in Gomes' music emerge naturally. A wonderful offbeat find from the small Prima Facie label that made classical best-seller charts in early 2024". - AllMusic
"Hamilton's playing is superb…The recording is excellent. Pedro Faria Gomes' music is definitely worth seeking out." Colin Clarke, Fanfare
"Kenneth Hamilton's playing is subtle, sensitive, and wonderfully songful; an exquisitely accomplished rendition of the rather discreetly rendered colours of the music and of its lyrical qualities." Holger Sambale, Klassik Heute
Tracklisting
Xuefei Yang, Johannes Moser, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Or
Kenneth Hamilton
Kenneth Hamilton
Michael Cretu
Laura Serra
The Choir of Robinson College, Cambridge & Will Sims
Helen Cawthorne
David Daly, Duncan Honeybourne, Ondrej Vrabec, Daniel Wiesner, Graham Walker, David Trippett
Kenneth Hamilton
Kenneth Hamilton
Kenneth Hamilton
Kenneth Hamilton, Gould Piano Trio, Philip Higham, Richard Lester, Alec Frank-Gemmill, Benjamin Frith & Alasdair Beatson
Kenneth Hamilton
Kenneth Hamilton
Kenneth Hamilton
