Although there are many composers who cannot perform their own piano works well,
David MacBride isn't one of them.
MacBride's piano music is marked by clarity in its textures and juxtaposition of harmonies that brings to mind
Messiaen, but without being quite so intense. The sonatas that open the disc are noted as "(after Scarlatti)" and embrace the Baroque composer's binary form and his quirky changes in rhythms. Still Night Thoughts illustrate the moods of the poems that inspired them, as well as being songs without words. The first of them, Song on Being Too Lazy to Get Up, like the sonatas, has quirky, divergent lines that sound like the argument you have with yourself when faced with the prospect of getting out of bed. The third song, River Snow, is a simple, quiet, but not frigid, picture of winter. The remaining works are the most personal ones, the ones that most remind you of that other, highly personal composer
Messiaen.
MacBride's pieces aren't as complex as
Messiaen, but he still has that sense of internalized wonder being shared with the listener. In fact, the way
MacBride performs his own music on this disc makes you think of improvisational jazz. Even though these are highly structured compositions, they are very personal to him, and he plays them as he feels them.