Prelude for Piano Op.45

Humphrey Searle composed this restrained and delicate Prelude for Piano on a theme of Alan Rawsthorne in 1965. A student of Anton Webern who, together with Elizabeth Lutyens was one of the pioneers of 12-tone music in Britain, Searle was a leading authority on the music of Franz Liszt, and also taught composition to the likes of Michael Finnissy and Wolfgang Rihm. Although his fastidious ear for instrumental colour show Webern’s influence, the hyper-romantic rhetoric with which Searle handled his harmonies owes more to Berg and Schoenberg, as well as a streak of more traditional ‘Britishness’ which never lost.