Baseball, Bach, a disused railway line and the misuse of music in Iraqi prisons might be unexpected inspirations behind the work of a composer who is an Oxford professor by day. But the piano music of Martyn Harry - born in Crawley, West Sussex, in 1964 - proves to be a wild, kaleidoscopic mix of just such unlikely influences: Satie, Sorabji, American minimalism, Prokofiev, Silvestrov and more, all intended to exercise the technique of his good friend, the fireball pianist Jonathan Powell, whose early death in December 2025 shocked the musical world. There is a gleeful, almost manic quality to much of this music that found a counterpart in the unflagging energy of Powell's playing. A song-cycle setting six early Anna Akhmatova poems likewise taps into the tension she found in intimacy, releasing a surprising degree of passion.

Tracklist:

Beltway Series~I. Arpeggions -
Beltway Series~II. Con fuoco -
Beltway Series~III. Embedded Chorale -
Beltway Series~IV. Chromatic -
Beltway Series~V. Toccata -
Beltway Series~VI. Three-Part Invention -
Beltway Series~VII. Giocoso (seventh inning stretch)
Beltway Series~VIII. Textural Fugato
Beltway Series~IX. Lament (empty ninth inning)
Chamber Intimacy~I -
Chamber Intimacy~II
Chamber Intimacy~III
Chamber Intimacy~IV
Chamber Intimacy~V
Chamber Intimacy~VI
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~I. Station I -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~II. Station II -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~III. Toccata I -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~IV. Station III -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~V. Toccata II -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~VI. Station IV -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~VII. Psalm I -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~VIII. Station V -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~IX. Toccata III -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~X. Hymn I -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XI. Toccata IV (Crib) -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XII. Hymn II -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XIII. Memory Dump I -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XIV. Hymn III -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XV. Psalm II -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XVI. Toccata V -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XVII. Hymn IV -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XVIII. Toccata VI (Crib) -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XIX. Toccata VII -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XX. Psalm III -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XXI. Stretto -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XXII. Station VII -
Bletchley Bedford Sandy~XXIII. Memory Dump II
Restraint for Handcuffed Pianist

UPC: 5060113447975
Label: Toccata
Release Date: 5.15.26
Format: CD

Lore Lixenberg - Martyn Harry: Pno Works & Songs (CD)