Hyperion Records

Stephen Reynolds has been heard as pianist and composer in concerts and broadcasts across Europe and the United States. He is currently on the faculty of his alma mater, the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where both Rawsthorne and myself studied. The two sets of pieces on this record were originally written in the 1980s as a diversion from the more serious and experimental music he was writing at the time. He talks of wanting to invade and absorb the sound-world of two of his favourite composers, and to use their musical language to create works of his own. The Delius-inspired pieces are especially welcome since that composer wrote very little for the piano. In both of the sets a longer, more substantial piece is prefaced by a shorter one in a related key.

from notes by Stephen Hough © 2002