Richard Casey piano

métier mex 77116

The expression ‘Renaissance Man’ refers in the present day to someone who is knowledgeable, educated and proficient across a wide range of fields. It is the perfect description of Dr Edward Cowie. He is listed as being proficient in music including composition, art, drawing and painting, and science, in particular physics, which he studied at Imperial College London. 

Rutherford’s Lights brings together all three of Cowie’s specialisms. The Rutherford of the title refers to the New Zealand born physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871 – 1937). However, it was when Cowie, at a book sale, happened upon a classic physics textbook The Theory of Light by Thomas Preston, first published in 1912, that he was inspired to create his new 24 Studies in Light and Colour for solo piano.

Each of the 24 piano studies performed with stunning virtuosity by Richard Casey has a title drawn from the world of advanced physics. I tried looking some of these up but got lost half-way through the first line. Far more helpful in understanding the music was to look at all 24 of the pictures created by Cowie, all reproduced in the accompanying booklet. These reminded me more than a little of Kandinsky.

What of the music itself? At a first listening, I was hit by a kind of musical shock and awe. Further listening brought lucidity and a sense of wonderment at the multicoloured pianistic details that shone through with such clarity in Richard Casey’s performance.

The opening study entitled Wave Motion starts with seething flurries of notes, first of all on the upper octaves of the piano like bursts of fireworks. When similar music moves to the lower octaves the music positively growls. There are moments of silence which have their own sonic value. Atonal leaps and runs follow. There is a sense of pointillism across many of the studies. There are sections of dry brittleness, contrasting with dreamy impressionism. Casey employs a vast range of piano touch in his full colour performance. The music is totally abstract, as are Cowie’s accompanying pictures, but like the music, their colours and shaping are thoroughly entrancing.

Review by Alan Cooper