Œuvre pour piano Volume 1

Description

On August 14, 2026, Divine Art is pleased to present The Complete Piano Music of Anthony Hedges (1931-2019) Vol 1, the first of three albums by British pianist Adam Davies, featuring the complete concert music for piano by this prolific composer. This first volume documents a thirty-year maturation showcasing the full range and diversity of Hedges' creative output, beginning with the earliest published piano pieces, the Five Preludes from 1959, fresh with youthful energy, and concluding with the brilliant and evocative Five Aphorisms from 1990. Between these pieces are two significant masterworks marking important stylistic shifts: Four Short Pieces, his raw incursion into serialism, and the bold intensity of the First Sonata. Interspersed among these are beautiful miniatures written for budding pianists, reflecting the composer’s pianistic talent and his ease in writing for young musicians. This music is colorful, rich in allusions, and finely crafted. Many of these works are recorded for the first time. Adam Davies first discovered Anthony Hedges' music in his youth and saw the composer himself perform, having grown up in Beverley, East Yorkshire, which was also home to Hedges. He rediscovered the composer during COVID after finding his own long-neglected score of Ten Bagatelles Op.156, gifted by his childhood singing teacher, and recalled the quality and accessibility of the writing. His enjoyment of these pieces, and his surprise at the relative lack of recordings of Hedges' music, led him to undertake the complete piano music. Anthony Hedges' daughter, Fiona, provided the scores and private recordings of many of the composer’s works: “Listening to these works has proven to be a liberating experience... he played like a composer: perhaps not with perfect care, but with imagination, purpose, character, and an expression of crystalline clarity permeating every note and phrase... I have tried to convey something of his essence in these recordings, which I hope will help draw more attention to this richly deserved repertoire.” The album is funded by the Ida Carroll Trust. Composer, pianist, conductor, teacher, and critic Anthony Hedges was born in the town of Bicester and studied at Oxford, where his extensive musical activity included singing in the Oxford Bach choir under the direction of luminaries such as Vaughan Williams and Constant Lambert. During his military service (1955-57), he worked as a pianist and arranger for the Royal Signals Band. He taught at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire in Glasgow and then at the University of Hull, where he became a reader and received an honorary doctorate, also meeting the poet Philip Larkin at that time and setting his words to music. In addition to a weekly column for the Glasgow Herald, he wrote reviews and interviews for the Guardian, the Scotsman, and other publications. His extensive output covers all genres, including lighter works that are popular and frequently broadcast for brass bands and orchestra. Pianist Adam Davies was born in Manchester and grew up in Beverley, East Yorkshire, where he had the opportunity to hear Anthony Hedges play the piano several times. Davies studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, where his teachers were John Gough and Dr. Murray McLachlan. Adam performs throughout the UK as a soloist in recital and concerto and teaches at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester. In 2019, he commissioned and gave the world premiere of Crux by Tom Harrold, and he has performed in duo with Kathryn Stott.