PROGRAMME NOTES

Rags, Blues and Parodies

Piano

Published in an album by Novello in 1986; included on CD with the same title from Albany TROY369 (2000); and in Peter Dickinson: Piano Music, played by the composer on Naxos 8.572654 (2011). All these pieces were written to be part of larger works. However, I have given them a life of their own on the piano in concerts and on CD. The first solo performances of Concerto Rag, Wild Rose Rag, Hymn-Tune Rag, Blue Rose, and Blues Nos 1 and 2 were in a BBC Radio 2 broadcast by the composer in the series At the Piano on 14 July 1985. The first public performances – except the Satie Transformations and Patriotic Rag – were at the British Music Information Centre on 6 December 1985.

1. Quartet Rag (1976) based on earlier material and used in String Quartet No. 2

2. Three Satie Transformations (1970)
Based on Satie’s first three Gnossiennes and written for the orchestral piece Satie Transformations

3. Four Blues (1973), based on hymn-tunes and used in American Trio (1985)

4. Concerto Rag (1980), used in Piano Concerto (1984)

5. Blue Rose (1979), a version of Edward MacDowell’s salon piece To a Wild Rose, the basis of Blue Rose Variations for organ (1985)

6. Wild Rose Rag (1985), a classical rag based on To a Wild Rose, also used in Blue Rose Variations for organ

7. Hymn-tune Rag (1985), written for the American Trio, and modelled closely on the style of the blind white American player and composer Charles Hunter (1876-1906)

8. Patriotic Rag (1986), based on God Save the Queen and Rule Britannia and composed for London Rags for two trumpets, horn, tenor trombone and tuba



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