Hayes, Morgan: Strides. Book 1
£6.50
5 minutes
Morgan Hayes is a noted young British composer of piano music, whose work has been programmed by leading contemporary pianists including Andrew Ball, Stephen Gutman, Rolf Hind, Sarah Nicolls and Ian Pace. For friends and fellow performers he often writes short, celebratory bagatelles entitled Strides, and three of them are collected here in the first book of an ongoing series. Fugitive visions that include ‘Wisps of Melody’, a bright fanfare and a disjointed march, they are within the range of younger pianists possessing a confident technique of around Grade 5 or above, and pianists of any age with an appetite for bold new repertoire.
Morgan Hayes is a British composer who has written short bagatelles for friends and colleagues. Three of these are published in this new volume, the first of an ongoing series. The first has as its title Wisps of Melody which perfectly describes it. Little fragments come and go in a diverse range of styles and textures. It is rather like searching for a station on the radio and hearing snippets of all sorts of other broadcasts as one turns the dial. By contrast, No.2 is rather grand and stately whilst No.3 is the most substantial of the group. A strong opening is followed by a gentler middle section before the signing off even more forcefully. It has its fare share of tricky rhythms, runs and quick motifs making it more difficult than the other two and suitable for Grade 6 or 7 students. Interesting new material, challenging and enjoyable!
Angela Fogg. Piano Journal Vol.26 Winter 2006
Morgan Hayes’ Strides book one contains three short pieces, running to only six pages, but, even if you had not heard his Prom commission Strip or his clarinet concerto Dark Room, you would soon know that there is nothing slight about this composer’s work. If you like music which might have influences/references coming as easily from Bach or Purcell as from Webern or the Aphex Twin, with a feeling of floating fragments, sometimes tonal, sometimes not, and an overall feeling of a post-modern play, a kind of compositional ‘bricolage’ assembled by a talented observer of the whole of music history, then you will like this. If that all sounds like nonsense straight out of Pseuds’ Corner and you prefer to know just where you are with a piece, then you will not. The pieces are relatively minimalist and not too demanding technically, so this represents an exciting chance to be able to share in the British ‘New Wave’ of composition without having to work at the score for hours and hours. But perhaps it would be as well to listen to some of his other music first (extracts can be downloaded from the net) to see if you are up for it, as the appeal of this music really is quite esoteric.
Neil Sissons, Sheet Music Review. March/April 2007
