• Bernard Hélène Joseph van Dieren (1887-1936) was born and raised in Rotterdam of a Dutch father and a Dutch-French mother. He moved to London in the autumn of 1909 and married a fellow-Rotterdamer, Frida Kindler, a superb pianist, a favourite pupil of Busoni, and the Italian master had a profound influence on them both. In 1911 van Dieren was present at the Liszt Centenary Concerts that Busoni gave in Berlin. In Busoni’s Berlin apartment he heard a private performance of Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” conducted by the composer, which made a deep impression on him, and inspired some of his early works.
• The influence of Busoni and Schoenberg was strong on the young composer, however he developed his own uniquely personal style, harmonically chromatic, rhythmically fluid and freely polyphonic, tonally anarchic rather than atonal and often notated without bar lines. At the same time melody, particularly the importance of the singing line, is central in his works.
• This 2-CD set presents Van Dieren’s complete works for solo piano, among them 4 Sketches, Tema con Variazione, Three Studies and Netherlands Melodies.
• In recent years pianist Christopher Guild (b.1986) has developed a strong reputation for his work with rare piano repertoire, especially that of the British Isles. He has performed as soloist and chamber musician at some of the most prestigious concert venues in the UK, including London’s Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square, the Purcell Room and Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall.
