Dorian Le Gallienne
Dorian Le Gallienne's piano miniatures balance reflective lyricism with bush-born energy, while his Shakespeare songs sit in the lyrical-pastoral English tradition. The music is carefully made, with clear melodic construction.
The Nocturne is quiet and inward; Jinker Ride takes its jolting pulse from the two-wheeled cart once common in the Australian bush. Three Shakespeare Settings for voice and piano share that early twentieth-century lyrical mode of nature and feeling. Beyond the short forms, his Sinfonietta and Symphony show affinities with Shostakovich, Hindemith, Prokofiev and Vaughan Williams, and the song-cycle Four Holy Sonnets of John Donne stands among his most substantial vocal works. He also wrote scores for film.
Compositions by Dorian Le Gallienne appear on
Jinker Ride
Here is a musical collection in celebration of the glorious instrument, the piano, expressly written for and the fully exploiting the resources of the modern pianoforte.