maxwellsteer

Fortress of Illusion for piano duo - score videos

A new composition for piano duo by Michael Maxwell Steer

Bach's Wohltemperierte Klavier Bk1, 13-24

This is the second part of my project to record all 48 preludes & fugues on my old Bechstein, with a scrolling score for study purposes. You will find some amusing lyrics that fit the fugue subjects at http://msteer.co.uk/creative/bach48lyrics.htm (a homage to Ebenezer Prout qv).
To me these pieces are one of the great sacred texts of music, and every year I have played throu them as a form of musical meditation. In 2008 I thought I should really learn & record them properly. At that point I realised how little I really knew them, and fitting the learning process between other priorities meant that I didnt record the first batch http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL43BC0DA9CFD084EB until 2010. A further year then elapsed before I was ready to record this set.

Bach's Wohltemperierte Klavier Bk2, 1-12

This is part of a project to record all 48 preludes & fugues on my Bechstein, with a scrolling score for study purposes. You will find some amusing lyrics that fit the fugue subject at http://msteer.co.uk/creative/bach48lyrics.htm (a homage to Ebenezer Prout qv).
I bought my Peters Edition in 1962 (in places it's not identical to the 19thC french edition used for the scroling score) To me these pieces are one of the great sacred texts of music, and every year I have played throu them as a form of musical meditation. In 2008 I thought I should really learn & record them properly. At that point I realised how little I really knew them, and fitting in the learning process amid the various distractions of which a life consists has taken a ridiculous amount of time. Even so, as you will hear at certain points, alas I was not immune to foolish errors when I sat down to record.
I started recording them individually, alone, but found the battle to get the notes right destroyed my sense of 'meditativity', and thus was false to the spirit of the music as I sought to convey it. These first 12 preludes & fugues were recorded in the presence of friends in September 2010.
Having spent a lifetime thinking about these pieces, I believe they work bettter as a sequence if the minor piece in each key precedes the major, rather than the printed order.
NB to YouTube: this is public domain, NOT copyright material

Improvisations with Susan Nares

Michael Maxwell Steer & Susan Nares have been improvising together for over 20 years. The music they make emerges spontaneously from a time of silent attunement which precedes playing.

harpsichord music by Wyllyam Byrde

Wyllyam Byrde (as he signed himself), 1540-1623, was the leading composer of the Elizabethan age. Organist of the Chapel Royal, his output covers all the musical forms of his era. His keyboard music is truly delightful: witty & highly rhythmic even when writing counterpoint. We are extremely fortunate that Francis Tregian spent his miserable years in the Fleet prison compiling what has become know as the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, for it is the only source throu which most of this music has come down to us.

harpsichord music by Johann Sweelinck

3 performances of the same music with different tunings

Dylan Thomas poems for acappella choir - score videos

Beguine Motets for acappella choir - score videos

The Beguines were a vast religious movement flourished throuout the german-speaking world in the 12/13thC, comprising a large proportion of widows left destitute by the deaths of their crusader husbands. They lived together in free association practising the Christian virtues, but not bound by the rules of the church. These fragments of poetry attracted me as exquisitely beautiful expressions of love for the ultimate mystery of life.
Just as the fish swims in the vastness of the ocean and rests in the deep, and as the bird boldly soars in the heit and the vastness of the air in the same way we feel our spirits roam free throu the heit and depth of the immense oceans of love. Beatrijs von Nazareth (13thC)

harpsichord music by Stephen Dodgson

Canticle 3 - Prophets. MIDI demo

Von Franz: The Way Of The Dream

Clips from 1983 film series by Frazer Boa, featuring veteran Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz discussing how the archetypal patterns of life manifest in dreams.

The depth of Von Franz's perceptions are further illustrated by recent films on mythology http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL381972AB4F184868 & http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4B5E54DC0606E4CC

Origin of Greek Myths by Robin Lane Fox

A superb 2010 BBC4 film wherein Oxford Professor Robin Lane Fox expounds his theory that the ancient Greeks' theology was Hittite in origin, first imported by the Euboean tribe, and later adopted as the unifying mythology of the Greek peoples.
Dir: Arif Nurmohamed. Camera: Patrick Acum. Sound: Sam Staples. Editor: Bill Coates. Research: Emilie Tournier

See also Tom Holland's Dinosaurs as Myth http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4B5E54DC0606E4CC
Both are of particular interest in relation to Marie-Louise von Franz's film series The Way Of The Dream http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEC62024EB58056EC