| This sumptuously presented book is a prominent landmark in the Bax literature and another magus-key to one window into Bax’s musical legacy: a magical casement indeed. | ||
| —Rob Barnett, British Music Society News 92 (December 2001) |
Click the quotation text to discover what it refers to!
Fand Music Press is a publisher of high quality sheet music, CDs and books, all focussing on accessible 20th Century and contemporary composers and concentrating mainly on first editions. Please use the tabs at the top of the page to explore the catalogue. Further details, such as information about ordering, can be found on the Contact/Info page.
The Martin Read Foundation has been involved in the production of a new Martin Read – A Celebration CD, launching on 27th April 2025 and featuring exclusively the music of Martin Read, an important Fand composer who tragically died suddenly in 2012. The new CD, full details of which can be found on this site, features nine works, half a dozen of which have hitherto not been published, but which Fand is now bringing before the public to coincide with the launch of the new CD. Indeed, every work on the new recording is now published by Fand. The newly published works are:
The CD also contains recordings of Autumn, Drawing Details in an Old Church and The Angel of History, which were already published by Fand.
(The Four Interludes appear as part of the full cantata on the CD, not as a separate work.)
On the subject of CDs, Fand has also been involved in the production of an exciting new CD entitled At the Open Door. Recorded by Lorna Windsor, soprano and William Hancox, piano, the CD contains some rare material very close to the spirit of Fand, including recordings of the following actual Fand publications:
In addition to those Fand-published pieces, the CD also contains recordings of the following works:
Many tracks from the CD may be previewed on this site, and the disc itself is available for purchase at a very reasonable price!
Also published by Fand this Easter is Gary Higginson’s Theme and Eight Variations for solo piano, aimed at pianists of approximately Grade 7 standard.
Although recently revised and newly published, this work has actually been in existence for a long time and is one of the composer’s earliest compositions, having been written initially when Gary Higginson was a student of Edmund Rubbra in the early 1970s. It was his first major composition exercise, although its importance and significance only revealed itself later. The work actually has a mild Christmas flavour, in that the original theme on which it is based was written on Christmas Eve 1970, and was originally considered a carol. The piece was revised somewhat back in 1990, and has undergone a few more small revisions in time for its publication in 2025.
A century ago this month, Peter Warlock became the tenant of a cottage in Eynsford, Kent, and was joined there by his friend, fellow composer E. J. Moeran. This period of shared habitation marked the beginning of the ‘Warlock Legend’: a time of riotous living with an open house policy to all kinds of outré visitors. It was a productive time for Warlock; less so for Moeran, who found the situation at the cottage too distracting to permit significant creativity. The shared tenancy lasted for only a relatively brief period of under three years, but it was a notable time during which Warlock composed his best-known work, Capriol.
John Mitchell’s latest publication, Eynsford Days, brings together two of his compositions in styles that pay tribute to both Warlock and Moeran individually. Both pieces were written some time ago: the Warlock tribute was composed as long ago as 1976 for saxophone quartet, but has since been rearranged for several different instrumentations, and the piano solo version published here is brand new. The Moeran tribute piece was originally written in 2006, and both individual compositions have been paired in this new publication to commemorate the centenary of the start of the interesting Eynsford-based joint period in Warlock’s and Moeran’s association.
Fand Music Press has recently won yet another award. This time, as part of Acquisition International Magazine’s 2025 Global Excellence Awards, Fand has been awarded:
Remarkably, in the space of only half a year, pianist Ennio Caironi has undertaken and completed the recording of Peter Thompson’s entire published output of solo piano (and other keyboard) music. The recordings may all be listened to on this site, just by browsing Peter’s appropriate publications.
For ease of access, though, and to commemorate this milestone, here is a list of all of Peter’s solo keyboard works, each of which now has at least one associated recording performed by Ennio:
Ennio has also provided his own recording of John Mitchell’s volume of piano arrangements of songs by E. J. Moeran, Songs Without the Words.
The tail end of 2024 sees the publications of a couple of new works by Peter Thompson, though only one of them is newly written.
October for Bassoon and String Quartet was composed back in October 1991. The work is in a single rhapsodic movement, sometimes darkly dreaming, at other times light-splashed with colour and joy – reflecting, therefore, aspects of the month of October.
Antique Dreams, by contrast, is a new work, though its title and unusual choice of instrument is suggestive of autumnal thoughts of a different kind. Written for solo Clavichord, it is a sequence of five short, delicate movements that evoke music of earlier ages but with distinctly modern overtones.
The Safe Return is a delightfully idiomatic folk tune written by Julian Farmer, poet and skilful folk musician. Peter Thompson has arranged the tune for either oboe/violin or ’cello with piano accompaniment. The score comes with all instrumental parts included.
Ennio Caironi has continued to provide Fand with further superb new recordings, this time of piano music by Bax and Warlock:
Ennio Caironi has put in a Herculean effort and completed the recording of all the solo piano music by Peter Thompson. Many thanks to him for his remarkable efforts.
Ennio Caironi has provided Fand with more of his superb recordings of piano music by Peter Thompson. As before, many of them are première recordings, and they may be found on the pages about the individual pieces:
Pianist Ennio Caironi has recently done Fand the great service of providing us with recordings of a significant number of mostly very difficult piano pieces by Peter Thompson and Sir Arnold Bax. They are wonderful performances, too: all very well played and nicely recorded. Moreover, these are première recordings of most of the Thompson works. The pieces that Ennio has recorded are as follows, and they may be heard by following the links to the pages about the individual pieces, where a playback control may be found:
Previous announcements may be found in the Fand News Archive.
