My attention has just been drawn to the following post on the Sorabji Archive website's forum today:
The new edition of
International Piano contains a very nice review of Alistair's op.49, reviewed by Murray McLachlan. I am on a train right now, but will try to type it all now on my phone.... I will have to edit it later to put in accents etc....
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Alistair Hinton is a prolific composer perhaps best known for his advocacy of Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's fascinating, complex and often beautiful music (see
www.sorabji-archive.co.uk). The title of this exquisite but challenging miniature by Hinton may refer to Gabriel Fauré's famous song, but in fact the piece is a musical commentary on another song - the fifth from Rachmaninov's Six Romances Op 58 [sic]. What we have here is far from the literal, carefully crafted Earl Wild transcription. In contrast, Hinton uses the Rachmaninov as a starting point for extraordinary colours, polyrhythms, filigree textures and exotic pitch formations that perhaps owe more to the florid writing of certain scores by Godowsky and Sorabji than to Fauré and Rachmaninov.
Using a three-stave layout, this 64-bar miniature is not for the fainthearted - the challenges are considerable. Indeed, in places it seems as though two performers would be needed to cope with the demands (the climax, which briefly reaches triple fortissimo in bar 42, is especially challenging). The vast majority of the piece is sketched at a sub-piano dynamic level, with lots of tactile-friendly albeit virtuosic double-note writing in 16th and 32nd notes. But the broad melodic line remains intact throughout, providing a musical thread for both listener and performer alike. This is a notable contribution to the repertoire in the tradition of Busoni, Godowsky and Ronald Stevenson. Fascinating, ravishing and innovatively pianistic writing for connoisseurs to savour.
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Naturally, I'm delighted to see this. Perhaps the reviewer might play it! It will receive its UK première next month in Oxford at the hands of Jonathan Powell.
