Remembrance and renewal: Peter Seabourne’s My Song in October

Peter Seabourne: Steps Vol 8: My Song in October, September, Just September; Karen Radcliffe, Michael Bell; Sheva Contemporary
Reviewed 20 September 2024

A step in contemporary composer Peter Seabourne’s mammoth cycle of solo piano pieces, a touching act of remembrance for both composer and pianist, and a fine introduction to Seabourne’s style

Peter Seabourne is a composer whose work you are, perhaps, more likely to hear on disc than in the concert hall though he has had some significant success. On disc, Sheva Contemporary have issued a remarkable sequence of Seabourne’s music. The disc My Song in October features two works by Seabourne, Steps Vol 8: My Song in October performed by pianist Michael Bell, and September, Just September performed by soprano Karen Radcliffe and pianist Michael Bell.

There is a strong air of remembrance to the disc. Pianist Michael Bell is a long time collaborator and friend of Peter Seabourne and both men lost their wives in 2020. The piano cycle Steps Vol 8: My Song in October subtitled Nineteen album leaves caught by the wind features one of several in memoriam pieces Seabourne wrote, whilst the song cycle September, Just September was recorded by Michael Bell and his wife, soprano Karen Radcliffe some 20 years ago and reissued here in remastered form as something of a tribute to her.

Steps Vol 8: My Song in October is volume eight in Steps, Seabourne’s mammoth, ongoing cycle of piano pieces. The title of this set is inspired by Ted Hughes’ poem Elegy for the Leaves, and each of the 19 pieces takes as its starting point a poem about, or including references to Autumn leaves. The Cd booklet not only includes Seabourne’s note explaining the inspirations behind each movement, but also the texts of the poems so that one can, if one wishes, read the poems whilst listening to Seabourne’s evocations. The result is a sequence of album leaves very much in the 19th century style, short, characteristic, lyrical pieces. Seabourne’s style is intelligently tonal, and there are some lovely evocative textures. The impulse in each piece is lyrical but he has a fondness for harmonies that can be opaque. Influences that we pick up are very much Debussy with hints of Messiaen, but there is Expressionism there too in the way Seabourne handles the lyrical impulse.

Pianist Michael Bell is strongly associated with Seabourne’s music and here, the pianist plays the pieces as if he has lived with them for ever, revealing great affection and often tenderness.

September, Just Septembers is a cycle of nine songs setting words by Emily Dickinson. Dickinson’s poetry made a strong impact on Seabourne when he was a student and he originally wrote a song cycle on the poems in 1985/87. Seabourne had a period of silence in the 1990s and when he renewed his music in early 2000s his style had changed. The songs, as heard here, are the result of his recasting of the earlier music. The cycle was written in 2001 and 2002, and the poems trace a path from Summer to Winter, both actual and metaphorical. 

What we notice on first listening is the strongly instrumental approach that Seabourne takes to the voice. Both voice and piano are vividly drawn with the writing moving between the lyrical and the highly strenuous, with the vocal line often high lying. The piano hardly accompanies, it contributes another point of view, complementing the voice. Words are rather at a premium and if you want to follow Dickinson’s texts then you need to resort to the printed words.  By the time we reach Winter towards the end of the cycle, the music is rather eerie and overall there is an apt sense of melancholy and perhaps bleakness to the cycle.

As well as being a touching act of remembrance, the disc also provides a fine and varied introduction to Seabourne’s music.

Peter Seabourne (born 1960) – Steps Vol 8: My Song in October
Peter Seabourne – September, Just September
Karen Radcliffe (soprano)
Michael Bell (piano)
Sheva Contemporary
Recorded 12-13 February 2023 at Wiltshire Music Centre; 2004, remastered 2023 at Keel University Chapel
SH 326 Sheva Contemporary 1CD [75.10]