In the Dew, a Homage to Janáček

Cheryl Frances-Hoad is one of the leading British composers of her generation — a former cellist, BBC Young Composer winner at fifteen, and writer of operas, orchestral works and a substantial chamber and piano output. Homages Book 1 (Stainer & Bell) takes specific composers as starting points and writes a short character piece in dialogue with each. In the Dew is the Janáček homage: a slow, modal, intensely-voiced piano miniature.

Technically the piece tests three things at concert standard. First, Janáček-style voicing — the Czech composer's piano writing puts every note on the surface, and Frances-Hoad's homage demands the same: no inner notes hide. Second, modal harmony: the piece moves through Lydian and Phrygian colours that need to be played as colour, not as expressive announcements. Third, careful rubato in the Czech-Slavic idiom — small, continuous, never large.

Two pitfalls. First, students smooth Janáček's characteristic rhythmic asymmetries into regular patterns; trust the score's accents and irregular bar groupings. Second, the modal colour notes are pulled into a tonal reading; let them stand as written.

Listening: PD recordings of Janáček's On an Overgrown Path and In the Mists are now widely available on Musopen and IMSLP audio (his music came out of copyright in the early 2000s). They are the essential reference for the homage.