On March 29 at London’s Wigmore Hall there is the opportunity to hear the world premiere of Upon Entering a Painting by John McCabe. This is McCabe’s first composition for four hands at one piano and it was commissioned by Piano 4 Hands (Joseph Tong and Waka Hasegawa), to whom it is dedicated. The inspiration of the piece was the kind of painting which, as you gaze at it, seems to draw the onlooker into the frame. The specific trigger for the idea of the piece was the Rothko Exhibition at Tate Modern in 2008 (Rothko has long been a favourite painter of McCabe’s). The opening and closing sections of the piece, with their gradual thickening of the harmonies and (at the end) equally gradual thinning, reflect this sense of stepping forward into and backward out of the works. The inner life of the faster sections, while apparently very un-Rothko-like, reflects the extraordinary, teeming inner life of the brush-strokes. The work will receive further performances by Piano 4 Hands throughout this year, including at the Bury St Edmund’s Festival.
