John Lenehan (born 1958) is a British classical pianist and composer. He has earned an international reputation for his work as a soloist and an accompanist and is recognised as one of the foremost chamber musicians of today.



Review: For the musically minimalist out there, Christmas has come early. With Sony BMG's new series of 'modern yet accessible and popular piano music' featuring the music of Ludovico Einaudi, Philip Glass and Michael Nyman, anyone with a love of gentle melody, slow changing hypnotic harmonies, repetitive figurations and translucently spare textures will be richly rewarded.



For starters, and for a bit of fun, I defy anyone to put on a single track here and identify who wrote it. This is not to denigrate the music in any way; it's merely to show how similar a sound-world these composers occupy. The laudable British pianist John Lenehan plays all the music here and does a good job, if not a particularly inspirational one. The recording, with its somewhat boomy acoustic, strange buzz and muddy middle register, does him no favours. It's also a shame that the dynamic level seems never to waver far from either a very faint pianissimo or a mezzo forte.



While I suspect that most lovers of Nyman's music will be familiar with his haunting music for the film The Piano, it's nice to have some tracks from The End of the Affair and Wonderland too. The same goes for Glass, whose somnolent music for The Hours makes this the perfect disc for listening to late at night.



CD1: Philip Glass - The Piano Music (1:13:26)



Glassworks

01. Opening

Trilogy Sonata (arranged by Paul Barnes)

02. Knee Play No.4 (from Einstein on the Beach)

03. Act III Conclusion (from Satyagraha)

04. Dance (from Akhnaten)

Music from 'The Hours'

05. The Poet Acts

06. Morning Passages

07. Something She Has To Do

08. I'm Going To Make A Cake

09. An Unwelcome Friend

10. Dead Things

11. Why Does Someone Have To Die

12. Tearing Herself Away

13. Escape!

14. Choosing Life

15. The Hours



CD2: Michael Nyman - The Piano Music (1:02:39)



Music from 'The Piano'

01. The heart asks pleasure first

02. Lost and found

03. Silver fingered fling

04. All imperfect things

05. Big my secret

06. Deep sleep playing

07. The mood that passes through

08. The attraction of the pedalling ankle

Music from 'Wonderland'

09. Franklyn

10. Nadia

11. Debbie

12. Jack

Music from 'Enemy Zero'

13. Love Theme

14. Digital Tragedy

Music from 'End of the Affair'

15. Diary of Love

Music from 'The Diary of Anne Frank'

16. Why

17. Candlefire

18. The Schoolroom

19. If



CD3: Ludovico Einaudi - The Piano Music (1:07:26)



01. Le Onde

02. Una Mattina

03. Due Tramonti

04. In un'altra vita

05. Dolce Drogba

06. Inizio

07. Onde Corte

08. La nascita delle cose segrete

09. Leo

10. Questa notte

11. Nefeli

12. Ombre

13. Nuvole bianchi'

14. La profindita del buio

15. Samba