Piers Lane goes to town

Piers Lane gambols delightfully through the twentieth century in this album of encores, party pieces and a few pianophile rarities, ranging from Dame Myra Hess’s unforgettable arrangement of Bach’s Jesu, joy of man’s desiring to Dudley Moore’s equally unforgettable Beethoven pastiche.

This album includes first recordings of, among others, John Ireland’s Ballerina and Mark Saya’s Offenbach/Chopin conflation Barcarolles. A number of these pieces are by Australian composers who wrote for Piers himself. His unbounded virtuosity and joy in the music is clearly an inspiration, and is evident throughout the recording.

CDA67967  76 minutes 8 seconds
IRR 'OUSTANDING' AWARD
‘This superbly recorded disc (played on a gorgeously voiced Steinway) is Lane's love letter to the piano. I wish more pianists would share their guilty pleasures like this’ (Gramophone)
‘Lane in wonderful, debonair mode here, sparkling through a personal encore selection from Jamaican Rumba to a Toccata by his own father, and from Myra Hess to Dudley Moore’ (BBC Music Magazine)
‘Puts smiles on our faces and tears in our eyes … Katharine Parker's Down Longford Way grows from an Ivor Novello-like charm into an opulently Romantic piece of striking contrast and colou ...