Varied Air

Charles IVES
Piano Sonata No. 1
Piano Sonata No. 2 - Concord
Three Page Sonata
Studies No. 2, No. 9, No, 20, No. 21, No. 22, No. 23
Waltz-Rondo
Five Take-Offs

Philip Mead is renowned as a performer of 20th century piano music and is espeically associated with the music of Charles Ives, whose music he has performed at the BBC Proms, the Barbican, on Radio 3 and across America. This double CD set includes the two major piano sonatas.

PAUL DRIVER - THE SUNDAY TIMES " These two discs afford a generous survey of Ives's substantial corpus of piano music, including the two big sonatas, the six-minute Three-Page Sonata, six of the Studies, an obstinately astringent Waltz-Rondo and the set of Five Take-Offs, which parody a piano recital divided between popular tonal and angry atonal offerings. The performances are superb - the readings of the marvellous First Sonata, with its excursions into ragtime, and the dauntingly transcendental Concord sonata, with its flute and viola obbligati, and fixation on Beethoven's Fifth, are deeply pondered - and so is the recording." **