Youth: Ten Pieces for Piano

These are the first pieces I have composed for solo piano. Many of the sounds, patterns and ideas within them have been in my mind and under my hands for a long time. The brief pieces variously include performance directions like ‘intimate,’ ‘spacious,’ ‘with childlike simplicity,’ ‘as if improvising.’ Each one seems to me now like a specific memory of an image, a sensation of place, a significant encounter, or a moment of vivid perception. I wanted above all to convey each musical image as clearly and directly as possible, and to write for the piano in a focused, uncluttered, personal way. –Edmund Finnis