Hanson: Piano Music

Though perhaps best known for his choral and orchestral works, the piano played a central role in the development of Howard Hanson as a composer. The instrument is heard, with few exceptions, in virtually everything he composed prior to winning the prestigious Prix de Rome at the age of twenty five. Under the influence of Respighi (his teacher in Rome) he succumbed to the rich tonal vocabulary of the orchestra, and wrote ever fewer works for the piano. Indeed, his last published solo piano work, For The First Time, is an arrangement of a suite originally composed for orchestra. Nonetheless, it was through the medium of the piano that the composer's distinctive idiom found its first expression in the works of an early maturity: the four Poemes erotiques, Op. 9, the Sonata in A Minor, Op 11 (1918), and the Three Miniatures, Op 12 (1918-1919). Here we find already the essence of Hanson's style: the bold outlines, the soaring melodies, the layered climaxes, the penchant for unpredictability, the subtle northern flavor (that does not escape even his most "American" compositions) - all exuding sincerity and imbued with personality.