Mountains, The ‘lost’ Australian Recording – John McCabe

   in Piano International (Mar, 2019)
Touted as a lost John McCabe recording, this disc acts as a reminder of McCabe’s greatness as a pianist. Recorded in Sydney in 1985, Mountains appears here in a new restoration.

Peter Sculthorpe’s granitic Mountains leaves me wondering why we don’t hear more of this composer’s music. After a splendidly performed Toccata by Wendy Hiscocks, McCabe finds huge beauty in Daniel Maslanka’s Piano Song; the modernity of Don Banks’ Pezzo dramatico similarly finds balm in Koehne’s Impressionist-inspired Twilight Rain.

Rothberg’s Carnival Music is the most extended work here, a brilliant exploration of different popular musics with a post-Bachian arioso at its heart. McCabe offers a fine version to sit alongside the …