Sam Haywood Archive

STANFORD: Preludes – Sam Haywood (p.) – Hyperion

by Audiophile Audition | May 31, 2017 | Classical CD Reviews

Sir Charles Villiers STANFORD: 38 Preludes from the Two Sets of 24 Preludes in all the keys for pianoforte, Opp. 163 and 179 – Sam Haywood, piano – Hyperion CDA68183, 69:41 (6/2/17) [Distr. by Harmonia mundi/PIAS] ****: Irish composer and organ pedagogue Stanford has some effective statements in his extended homage to Bach, his 48 preludes. Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) survives today more as a pedagogue and musical influence in the academic tradition of Cambridge and the Anglican persuasion, the teacher of such notables as Holst and Vaughan Williams. Highly conservative, Stanford sympathized with his conception of Brahms, as an upholder of classical values in the face of an increasingly chromatic modernism; and so, in reaction to the encroachments of Wagner, Liszt, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Varese, and Busoni, Stanford sought retreat into the music of J.S. Bach.  Christopher Howells notes that  Stanford “had amassed by the end of [his life] a corpus [of piano music] equal to, or greater than such near contemporaries as Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Grieg or Dvorak.” Stanford produced two distinct sets of 24 preludes modeled after the Bach WTC, the Op. 163 (in 1918) and the Op. 179 (c. 1921).  Australian pianist Sam Haywood has chosen from […]