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Additional Information
White Book 1 was composed in 2001, although it had to wait a number of years for the premiere of the complete set of pieces (other performers had played selections from the music) which was given in London by Annett Busse in 2009.
The inspiration for the White Book series came, in part, from my love of Couperin’s Ordres for harpsichord, as well as the piano preludes of Debussy. Both composers used the keyboard as a vehicle to express the multi-faceted nature of life.
White Book 1 has something of the journey about it. The music departs from a central harmonic area in the first piece, and although it criss-crosses in and out of this harmony as the set unfolds it’s only with the last work that a sense of arrival is reached. The overall effect is somewhat like a Persian carpet, or a mosaic, with small linear motifs and tiny fragments of colour jostling together to create larger decorative patterns.
The pieces have been recorded by Mark Tanner on the Priory label