Bach Org Bm Prelude & Fugue

Bach Schmucke Dich

W1 Bach Komm Heiliger Geist

Chorale Prelude: When I survey the Wond'rous Cross

Chorale Prelude: Amazing Grace

Chorale Prelude: Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer

Impromptu Valentine, originally an improvisation on 14 February 2022

Impromptu Valentine (composed & performed by MMS)

Flute demo of music for vocal quartet - Praying, #2
 of Michael Maxwell Steer's Poems from Nowhere.

Praying (Flute demo of vocal quartet)

Easter Dawn
It is that time of night
when the silence is alive with possibilities –
That time when solar tides turn
without a murmur –
When our bodies quicken unconsciously – 
When the minute hand steps unheard onto the hour.
Can we be present at our own birth?

Here is something you cannot eat,
something you cannot fill your belly with,
something you cannot buy, cannot wear,
something that offers no hiding place
from whom you truly are.
It is cleverer than air,
clearer than sound,
faster than quicksilver,
simpler than sight …
Here is the echo of your heartbeat
in the moonlit amphitheatre.
Here is the cataract of your blood
pulsing beneath mountains.
Here what you cannot control
governs the destiny of nations.
Here a teardrop is louder than thunder,
Here a sigh is more potent than a tornado,
a wish more persuasive than a tv commercial.

Here is intention laid bare,
its sleeping body a devastating prize
for all who dare approach their inmost –
Seeing such beauty 
who would consider themselves worthy
to touch /hold /enjoy?
Is there any more intimate, more precious, more dangerous love-making 
than the engagement between our waking self and our dream self?
High
beautiful
		voluptuous –
our dream self turns,
	its perfume cascading like may blossom,
healing the crescent dawn with careless brilliance.
So it is that we approach this most sacred love of our lives
with deepest fear – that, if after years of distant adoration, 
we should dare to awaken this dream self of ours 
only to find it would not recognize us as its carcase and carapace –
could not see in us the beauty it seeks in a mate?
How the heart quails as it approaches 
the vision of its own otherness –
the glistening mirror than records 
all love’s transactions.
In this Easter dark, now, it is available 
to see,
		to embrace, 
			to transform.
“You are the enemy I killed, my friend.”
Your darkest part is the source of your greatest light.
Release the trapped energy
and your black hole becomes the sun of a new galaxy.

The birdsong of every resurrection morning
chants the implicate order of all exuberant nature.
Life itself full-throttle. Purged of sleep and dark, 
each counterpoint is a new colour in the world’s thought.
What has been transformed by death is nothing other than what you always were. 
It is I, the enemy you killed, who now stands before you
paler than a moon fading into the dawn sky –
I, the dream self with whom you enjoyed the standing instant, 
but who dissolved as you tried to shackle me.
It is I, the dream Christ, companion of your utmost wishes,
I who was here, and you knew me not.

Easter Dawn ® Mix4

Accompaniment for songs by Elizabeth English

English2 Waiting For Magic - piano

English1 For Now - piano

Part of a BBCr3 program I made in 1987. For more see https://soundcloud.com/mmsteer/sets/bbc-radio-3-drama-a-short-walk

Thomas Coryate's description of Venice 1609

I & the Night (12/2022)

Slow Dance with Sidekicks - Wind Quintet demo

Wind Quintet Jogging (3v1)

MIDI demo of an Overture for full orchestra

All Saints Overture 2.0

Words Tony Bowland :: Music Michael Maxwell Steer

For Thich Nhat Hanh (Bowland MMS) MIDI demo

Words Tony Bowland :: Music  Michæl Maxwell Steer

Wonder (Bowland/Steer) MIDI demo

Montana for String Orchestra

"Milhaud discovers jazz" Darius Milhaud's account of his visit to The Hammersmith Palais de Danse in 1917 to hear the Billy Arnold Jazz Band, the first jazz musicians to arrive in Europe. Read by David Garth.

From The Composer's Voice, an anthology of writings by 20thC composers prepared by MMS, and broadcast on BBCr3 in 1984. Producer, John Theocharis.


The Composer's Voice: Darius Milhaud

"Ravel's Basque Concerto" The pianist who premiered it remembers his G major piano concerto, and the background to the premiere of the Concerto for the Left Hand. Translated & adapted by MMS. Read unknown.

BBCr3 Interval Talk 1988. Producer John Theocharis.

Marguerite Long's memories of Maurice Ravel

Sonnets to Orpheus 6 (Sonnet 1.17) Music /lyrics by Michael Maxwell Steer based on the German of Rainer Maria Rilke.

©2001. ®2004 by Frances M Lynch with the Argonaut Ensemble (Carlos Lopez-Réal saxes, Andrew Cottee percussion, Nick Hayward bass, MMS piano /director)

Sonnets to Orpheus 12: Silent companion of the empty spaces

'Escape from the Harem' BBCr3 1986. A sound picture for radio,  translated & dramatised  by MMS, from Jean-François Regnard's 1671 account of love and slavery in Algiers contained in his memoir La Provençale - with the music of André Campra, Jean Féry Rebel & Michel Pinelot de Montéclair researched by Nancy Hadden & arranged by MMS; performed by Philomel under their joint direction.

Escape 1 - Ouverture, André Campra

This play, broadcast as a 'drama on three', makes use of Berners own music (L'uomo dai baffi) as the music of the composer at the centre of the drana, Emmanuel Smith. Berners modeled the character on William Walton, and the piece is also a roman a clef about Walton's (bi-)sexual as well as his creative dilemmas.

The cast: Rupert Graves as Emmanuel Smith: Jane Wenham as Madame Jeanne d'Arc, his mentor: Annette Badland as the '7ft Amazonian trombone player' with whom Smith falls in love: Susie Brand as Evangeline Brown, his fiancée: Manning Wilson & Rachel Gurney as Rev & Mrs Brown, her parents. Anthony Newlands as the mysterious Count Omega's social secretary: Timothy Bateson as Prof Grumbelius who is brought in to advise Smith. And Irène Prador as the Queen Mother.
L'Uomo dai baffi performed by the Aquarius Ensemble under Nicholas Cleobury, and in a piano version by Michael Maxwell Steer. Produced by John Theocharis BBCr3 Features. 1987

Critics wrote:
"The big drama of the week on Radio 3 … A pleasantly exotic whimsy." The Listener.
"These highly original [musical] works help to make the characters seem more credible than on the printed page … as a result Count Omega was magnified by its translation from novel to radio play; and Lord Berners' fantasy became a musical extravaganza." Times Lit Supp

COUNT OMEGA (by Lord Berners, dramatised by MMS) part 4

COUNT OMEGA (by Lord Berners, dramatised by MMS) part 1

This play, broadcast as a 'drama on three', makes use of Berners own music (L'uomo dai baffi) as the music of the composer at the centre of the drana, Emmanuel Smith. Berners modeled the character on William Walton, and the piece is also a roman a clef about Walton's (bi-)sexual as well as his creative dilemmas.

The cast: Rupert Graves as Emmanuel Smith: Jane Wenham as Madame Jeanne d'Arc, his mentor: Annette Badland as the '7ft Amazonian trombone player' with whom Smith falls in love: Susie Brand as Evangeline Brown, his fiancée: Manning Wilson & Rachel Gurney as Rev & Mrs Brown, her parents. Anthony Newlands as the mysterious Count Omega's social secretary: Timothy Bateson as Prof Grumbelius who is brought in to advise Smith. And Irène Prador as the Queen Mother.
L'Uomo dai baffi performed by the Aquarius Ensemble under Nicholas Cleobury, and in a piano version by Michael Maxwell Steer. Produced by John Theocharis BBCr3 Features. 1987

http://msteer.co.uk/

Critics wrote:
"The big drama of the week on Radio 3 … A pleasantly exotic whimsy." The Listener.
"These highly original [musical] works help to make the characters seem more credible than on the printed page … as a result Count Omega was magnified by its translation from novel to radio play; and Lord Berners' fantasy became a musical extravaganza." Times Lit Supp

COUNT OMEGA (by Lord Berners, dramatised by MMS) part 2

COUNT OMEGA (by Lord Berners, dramatised by MMS) part 3

Commonly know as the French Suites because of the title  'pour le clavessin' (tho Bach never refered to them as French), they were composed in 1722 and are the first of Bach's sets of keyboard suites that culminates in the partitas.

Oliver Nares recorded my performances in April 1997 on a Taskin copy by Michael Palmer at Musicalfresco.

MMS performs Bach's Suite #6 in E 'pour le clavessin' BWV817 - Polonaise

Commonly known as the French Suites because of the title  'pour le clavessin' (tho Bach never refered to them as French), they were composed in 1722 and as BWV812-817 are the first of Bach's sets of keyboard suites that culminates in the partitas.

Michael Maxwell Steer's performances were recorded by Oliver Nares at Musicalfresco Studios in April 1997 on a Taskin copy by Michael Palmer. 

See a full article on the French Suites at http://msteer.co.uk/audi/3bachfrenchsuites.html

Bach Suite 2 in Cm 'pour le clavessin' BWV813 - Allemande

Bach Suite 1 in Dm 'pour le clavessin' BWV812 - Allemande

Sigtune and incidental music from BBCtv drama

05 Trinity Tales - Ragtime (bari sax)

02 Listen, we'll tell you a tale

01 Trinity Tales - Opening Credits

Composed in 2004 with text in occitan french from Cathars & Reincarnation by Arthur Guirdham; theyre performed here by Harriet Martinez & MM Steer

Si Belles Yeux

Between 2006-2012 Susan Nares & I would often meet at her home in Chewton Glen Farm, Christchurch, for spiritually-attuned improvisation. See also video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUID9Pg93l4&list=PLDA07DF0F23DCBECD  

Dream Space. SN, MMS. 05/06/2009

Bach's concerto transcriptions of Vivaldi date from his second period at Weimar (1708–1717). In 1713-14 he transcribed a number of Italian and Italianate concertos, mainly by Vivaldi, but with others by Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello, Telemann and Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar for organ and harpsichord. 

The Concerto in A minor, BWV 593 is an arrangement for solo organ of Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Violins in A minor, from his L'Estro Harmonico Op. 3 (#8), 
Allegro
4:19  Adagio - senza pedale a due claviere (Vivaldi marks Larghetto e spiritoso)
8:01 Allegro 

Around 1715 Johann Bernhard Bach copied 12 of Johann Sebastian's concerto transcriptions in a single manuscript.

MM Steer plays Bach's arrangement for organ (BWV593) of Vivaldi's Am concerto for 2 violins (RV589)

Composed between Aug16-23 2019, this is a MIDI demo with synth sax and piano which I hope to hear premiered in November.

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