Isn’t It More Fun With Two?

This autumn saw the completion of a project that I began way back in 2020.  It started as another Covid lockdown project: I wrote some piano duets for some students I know.  I think even at the best of times it can be heartening to practice when you know you’ll be making music with others.  And during the interminable lockdowns, everyone needed something to look forward to.

I wrote the pieces based on the personalities of the students to whom they are dedicated.  One who was largely uncaring of accidentals got a piece that is almost all accidentals.  Another who didn’t like playing three against two got a piece with some prominent three against two… some who didn’t much enjoy playing scales got… well, you get the idea.  After I’d finished, I spread out all the pieces, including a couple I wrote with no dedication, and they seemed to form themselves into a kind of day in the life of a child, so I went with that.  I remember being enchanted by the juxtaposition of music and drawing in Satie’s Sports et Divertissements, so I approached Alan Babington-Smith, another old friend, who agreed to create some watercolour illustrations.  My old friend Joseph Cheung who runs a small publishing company called jclink kindly agreed to publish.  His lovely team went to work and, as if by magic, Memories of Childhood appeared.

There wasn’t much concert life from 2020 to 2022, but friends enjoyed playing them, as (amazingly) did the students for whom they were written.  After a couple of years of kind friends slipping the odd duet in as a concert encore, I finally scheduled a recording.  Shen Yue and Michael Tsalka had a fun couple of days with these pieces, and we even had the time to record my Five Microscopic Duets.  The recordings of both works were beautifully mastered by (Canadian) David Braid, another old friend.