For the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth, Nicolas Hodges set three late Beethoven works beside three piano pieces by Harrison Birtwistle, two of them written for him. The Fantasie op. 77, the Six Bagatelles op. 126 and the Allegretto in B minor WoO 61 alternate with Variations from the Golden Mountain, Gigue Machine and Dance of the metro-gnome. The aim is to show how much the two composers share, and how contemporary Beethoven can still sound.
Hodges is known for his command of hyper-complex new scores, often prepared together with their composers, and less widely for his playing of older music. He recorded this programme in a studio production of WDR, from 19 to 22 November 2019 in the Klaus-von-Bismarck-Saal in Cologne. Birtwistle, born in 1934, died in April 2022 at the age of 87. Many of his late piano works were composed for Hodges. The booklet essay is by Tom Service.
Gigue Machine (2011) is dedicated to Hodges and was commissioned for him by SWR Stuttgart, Carnegie Hall and Cal Performances. He gave its first performance at the Theaterhaus in Stuttgart on 12 February 2012, and in his own words "it never sits down". Variations from the Golden Mountain (2014) was commissioned by Wigmore Hall, where Hodges premiered it on 14 September 2014. Its title refers to Bach's Goldberg Variations, which led Birtwistle to link short, self-contained episodes into one larger form. The tiny Dance of the metro-gnome (2006) was written to be played by children, with a spoken part and a ticking metronome at both ends. On the Beethoven side, the Fantasie dates from 1809, the Allegretto from 1821 and the Bagatelles from 1824.
In BBC Music Magazine, Claire Jackson found the pairing "highly successful" and wrote that "Hodges demonstrates an unerring understanding of Birtwistle's language". Dominy Clements of MusicWeb International called the album "superbly played and recorded" and found Hodges's Beethoven "colourful and vividly communicated". Anyone expecting soothing background music, the label warns, should look elsewhere.
CD, Wergo WER 6810 2, in the WERGO Concept series, released in 2020 (total time 59'11"). Licensed from WDR mediagroup.
