Expressions contains piano music from Anthony Ritchie ranging over a period of almost 30 years, and performed by Tom McGrath. The earliest work on the disk is Poems of Spring, written in 1981 during the Springbok tour of NZ and captures some of the turmoil of that time. The most recent piece is A Little Sleep, written for Tom McGrath in 2009, and shows the influence of gamelan music. In between are works dating from Anthony’s time as Mozart Fellow – the Piano Sonata 1988, Music for Tristan, and the widely performed Olveston Suite. His popular descriptive piece Birds and a Steam Train in the Catlins also receives its first recording. The piano is Anthony’s own instrument and this disk shows a range of personal expression and feelings in sound, expertly captured by McGrath’s poetic touch.
