MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: McEwen: Three Preludes, Sonata in E minor, Four Sketches, etc

'But the chief quality of McEwen's piano music is a sense of international flavour... It would all be for naught but for the always scintillating playing of Tozer...' - Fanfare

Geoffrey Tozer plays most of McEwen's solo piano music, including the premiere recording of the Sonata in E minor, on this the first of two discs, the second of which will be issued at a later date.

Chandos has embarked upon a project to record all of McEwen's chamber works. Next to come in the series are the String Quartets.

The Scottish composer, teacher and administrator Sir John Blackwood McEwen would now be only a name in musical reference books were it not for the generosity of the Vaughan Williams Trust in sponsoring several recordings of McEwen's work. Delightful and engaging works have been rescued from undeserved neglect. Apart from a large, would-be Brahmsian sonata all the works are sets of miniatures, designed no doubt for home consumption or for teaching young fingers to play. They make excellent teaching material, being simple in form but sufficiently quirky and humorous to hold the interest of a child, and just difficult enough to make a clean performance an achievement.

Musicians who know and love the boundless invention and expressiveness of the fiddle music of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland will not be at all surprised at McEwen's delight in the single note, its economy and power. His use of silence puts him in the Webern and Sibelius league of musicians who can control silences in music - a rare virtue among composers and performers.

'Charlier and Tozer turn in splendidly spirited performances in excellent sound.'
BBC Music Magazine on CHAN 9880 (Violin Sonatas)

'This is quite a discovery. Purchasers of Chandos' two previous McEwen disc… will know that the Scottish head of RAM [Royal Academy of Music] was not merely a distinguished administrator but a gifted and original orchestral composer.'
BBC Music Magazine on CHAN 9669 (Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity)

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Australian pianist Geoffrey Tozer made his concerto debut with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the age of eight and within four years had played all the Beethoven Concertos and added over 200 works to his solo repertoire. He became the youngest person to be awarded a Churchill Fellowship, enabling him to travel to London where he made his debut, aged fifteen, at the Royal Albert Hall with Sir Colin Davis conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 1989, in recognition of his achievements he became one of the seven recipients of the inaugural Australian Artists' Creative Fellowships awarded by the Australian Government.

In 1991 he signed an exclusive long-term contract with Chandos Records. His recordings of the three Piano Concertos of Nikolai Medtner with the London Philharmonic conducted by Neeme Järvi (CHAN 9040) have been enthusiastically received throughout the world and received France's premier record award Diapason d'Or in 1992.