JOHN RITCHIE: Suite for Piano

JOHN RITCHIE: Suite for Piano

John Ritchie’s ‘Suite for Piano’ is, “an unpublished work written in 1955 for one of Ritchie’s students, Margaret Nielsen, who became one of the leading exponents of New Zealand music in the decades to follow. The suite actually contains two other movements but the manuscript is incomplete [subsequent to this performance, the missing pages have been located]. Several of the movements were re-arranged for other instrumental combinations and have become well-known in those new genres. For example, ‘Air’ became the slow movement for Suite for Strings. The Scherzo became part of the Brass quintet, while the Intermezzo became one of the ‘Whimsies’ for guitar. To some extent, these rearrangements show a philosophy of music related to the 20th century Gebrauchsmusik, or ‘utility music’, and harking back to the baroque where it was common for music to appear in different guises.”

Tom McGrath (piano) performs ‘Air’, ‘Caprice’, ‘Intermezzo’ and ‘Scherzo’ from ‘Suite for Piano’ in this SOUNZ Film from Marama Hall.

Audio recorded by Danny Buchanan.

Film funded by NZ On Air.

--

Further information about the composer biographies associated with these films can be discovered at https://www.sounz.org.nz/

Explore our extensive catalogue of scores, CDs, books and resource library at
https://www.sounz.org.nz/info-for/sou...

Connect with #SOUNZ on
Facebook:   / sounznz  
Twitter:   / sounznz  
Instagram:   / sounz_nz  

#nzmusic #classicalmusic