Riding the Thermals—Howard Skempton's Piano Music

Extract

Howard skempton is a deeply serious composer, but his art is modest and makes no self-conscious effort to impress. Precisely because it is so natural the music seems to tell us a lot about the private person behind the notes. The music's dimensions are equally modest. Most of the piano pieces last little more than a minute or two, and they are ideal for domestic music-making, playing for one's own pleasure or to a friend.

Skempton was born in 1947. He studied composition privately with Cornelius Cardew with whom, together with Michael Parsons, he helped to found the Scratch Orchestra in 1969. Since 1974 he has composed vocal, accordion, and percussion pieces for the many concerts he has given with Michael Parsons. His largest work to date has been Chorales which was given its first performance in 1982 by the Merseyside Youth Orchestra.