Stuart Listening to More Classical Music Shocker… and again quite enjoys it!

Now I don’t know if it’s my impending birthday (I’ll be 47 nurse tells me) or what, but the last two classical music albums I’ve listened to I’ve really enjoyed a great deal indeed.

Alexander Chapman Campbell is a solo pianist who decided that a university life wasn’t for him and so he moved to the North coast of Scotland where he worked as a chef and the rest of the time composed music at his piano.

By 2010 he had decided to give up the cooking lark and take up composing full time and so, with the loan of his grandfather’s upright piano spent three years practicing, studying and composing for solo piano with Sketches Of Light being the resulting collection. All the tunes on the record were recorded at St George’s in Bristol.

As with “From Spain to Eternity” this is new territory for me and so when HIGHRESAUDIO sent this out I assumed it would get the usual cursory listen most classical music does and be bypassed for more “modern” musical offerings.

Sketches works well as a whole piece despite the individual tunes not being connected as such and Alexander Chapman Campbell certainly knows a thing or two about writing moving musical pieces.
There’s a deftness of touch about his playing and compositional style that brings to mind light dancing on the surface of the water in “Light On the River” (Linette made the same remark when listening and without knowing the album’s title) and this conjuring of images carries through to the other tunes on the album too.

A real close your eyes and drift away record that is not unlike some of the chilled electronica that is out there in some ways – though it is just piano! Yes, this is classical music but it’s not the “stately home music” that I so dislike. It’s beautiful, engaging, accessible and I hope that others not used to listening to this kind of music will put away their prejudices and give this one a whirl…it’s lovely!