For Solo Piano

I collected together these three light-hearted pieces in the hope that people might enjoy them in much the same spirit as they were composed.

1. Sassafras Gully Waltz (1997)

When my friend Nicholas Routley – pianist, conductor, composer and academic – turned 50 in 1997, this was my present to him. (Nicholas lives on the edge of Sassafras Gully in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney). The waltz is intended to reflect his enthusiasm and impetuosity as well as his predilection for 19th century Romantic piano music.

2. Sandy Stone’s Waltz (1997)

Barry Humphries asked me to provide music for his monologue The Cries of Australia, which he presented, in association with the cellist Steven Isserlis and the pianist Susan Tomes, during the 1997 Master Series in London’s Wigmore Hall. Less celebrated than such other of Barry’s theatrical creations as Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson, Sandy Stone has been described as “a decent, honest, kind-hearted, but deeply conventional man who takes life as it comes.” This waltz, extracted from The Cries of Australia, is a gentle parody of the popular music of the 1920s, when Sandy was courting Beryl, his wife-to-be, in the “lovely Melbourne suburb” of Glen Iris.

3. Annandale Waltz (1998)

A third waltz being called for to round off the set, I decided to compose one as a Christmas present for my wife, Helen, who’s a piano teacher. (Annandale is the lovely Sydney suburb where we live). Helen said she thought it was a bit mushy and next time would I please write her a tango.

 

Sassafras Gully Waltz

 

Sandy Stone’s Waltz