Hyperion Records

Alan Rawsthorne was an original and powerful voice in British music in the mid-twentieth century. The Bagatelles, four short pieces ingeniously based on a ten-note theme, were written in 1938 for my teacher Gordon Green. I studied them with him as a teenager and I remember his eyes filling with tears on one occasion after hearing the last piece, its restrained emotion reminding him of his affectionate friendship with the composer and the latter’s recent death.

from notes by Stephen Hough © 2002