<<  -- 6 --  Roderic Dunnett    LISZTIAN SPARKLE

'So while the Sonatas and the Symphony reflect my interest in larger canvases, I'm also very interested in miniatures. Even before this ten second thing I wrote that one-minute piano piece you mentioned, 60 Second Puzzle; the mathematical puzzle lies in it concealing the missing part of a twelve-tone sequence : it's not that I'm Serially-oriented as such, but I got fascinated with using this idea as an exercise; it's not complicated, just somewhat, I guess you could say, enigmatic. I've done several other very short piano pieces too.

Are these Snippets ten-second sonatas? 'Well, funny you should ask, because with the very last piece, I just couldn't resist! It's a four-movement sonata in ten seconds! There's a real allegro, a scherzo, a slow movement; and a finale : dum di dum dum dum -- parp!' In fact, Twelve Snippets, compactly scored for an ensemble of flute, clarinet, cello and piano, is one of Haskell Small's most brilliant pieces to date : the subtle instrumentation, varying from one to four instruments, is a (dare I say it?) small masterpiece in itself.

Satie would have been proud; (Gymnopedies, Gnossiennes, Truly Flabby Preludes (for a dog), Dried Embryoes and Sports et Divertissements are all in Haskell Small's repertoire; yet the wit of his own writing -- what the New York Times termed 'satire and whimsy' -- isn't, I suggest, merely Satieesque : it's Mozartian as well. 'Well, Mozart is certainly a composer I love', he says, obviously meaning just that. With half a dozen Mozart concertos in his repertoire, and even more of Mozart's sonatas (alongside sundry Scarlatti and the Haydn C major, Hob XVI/50) Small is not a composer who chooses to skimp the Classical period.

Still, with Satie and Mompou, plus 'The short-toed Lark' (from Messiaen's Catalogue des Oiseaux) among his favourites, a whole disc (Once Upon a Time -- Children's Tales for Piano and Narrator) including Poulenc's The Story of Babar, Richard Wilson's A Child's London and Henry Barraud's Histoires pour les Enfants -- all with narrator Robert Aubry Davis), plus a teasing Mozartian flair to his Snippets, is a child-like or childhood element perhaps something of a Small Leitmotif ?

'You could have something there. I certainly like the magic of childhood, and Babar, for one, is a fantastic piece. Actually I should mention that I've also discovered (and recorded on that disc) a piece by Soulima Stravinsky -- the son of Igor. It consists of settings of three fairytales -- Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty and Jack and the Beanstalk -- which I think hit just the right tone; his characterisations are brilliant. It's a great find.

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