Christopher Guild - Musique pour piano solo (2014)

Ronald Center (1913-73) is sometimes described as 'the Scottish Bartók', and his music does indeed capture some of the wild energy of the Scottish landscape in a style of Bartókian asperity. It also shows affinities with the music of Busoni, Debussy, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams, absorbed into an individual style that is audibly Scots. Center wrote with striking concision and meticulous craftsmanship, his works encompassing a wide range of emotions — heart-felt sorrow, grim humour, relaxed lyricism, dark despair — in a crisp and succinct manner, animated by sharp wit and irony.