Anthony Burgess: Piano Works, Volume 2

Description

Anthony Burgess (1917-1993) was a novelist, poet, playwright, lecturer, translator and literary journalist. Best known for his literary novels, including The Pianoplayers, Earthly Powers and A Clockwork Orange, he was also a prolific composer and arranger, writing a Symphony in C, a Piano Concerto, a Violin Concerto for Yehudi Menuhin, and more than 250 other musical works. Burgess writes about his formation as a composer in This Man and Music, his musical autobiography. Piano Works Volume 2 brings together several pieces which have been very recently discovered in the Burgess archives in Texas and Manchester. Taken together, they illustrate the unexpected range and variety of his writing for piano. Some of the pieces are undated, but the most substantial work, Suite for Four Hands, can be dated to 1975, the year in which Burgess befriended the translator Susan Roberts, to whom the suite is dedicated. Previous Burgess recordings on CD have included 24 Preludes and Fugues, a selection of his orchestral music including the Shakespeare ballet Mr W.S., and The Piano Music of Anthony Burgess, a first selection of shorter piano works. Piano Works Volume 2 was recorded on Anthony Burgess's own Bosendorfer piano at the Burgess Foundation in Manchester, by Richard Casey and Ian Buckle.