This is quite enthralling. It's gripping music! It's excellently orchestrated, and it has an extraordinarily natural flow in it.

Very original harmonic ideas here, brilliant!

A fantastic entry of the orchestra again here.

This really needs performing by a major orchestra with one of the best world class concert pianists. It's fantastic!

Magnificent work Paul.  Full of intensity and drama.  A very dynamic and exciting work.  Great orchestration culminating in such thick and wonderfully gooey layers of musical expression at the end.  Really enjoyed listening.

Wonderful music! Fanciful, dramatic and engaging.

Between 01:10 and 01:30, a perfect musical representation of an adrenaline rush. Wonderful work.

Symphony 2 - version for 2 pianos

This is a recording from the world premiere of this piece performed by Delia Stevens at the Royal College of Music Concert Hall in London as part of the BBC Proms Plus Concert Series live on BBC Radio 3.

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Concerto per pianoforte n. 2 - Il grande illusionista
per pianoforte e grande orchestra
   I - ...si svogle un dramma
   II - ...un'elegia assurda
   III - ...una cadenza surreale
   IV - ...un gran finale: introduzione - una passacaglia imperiosa

This piano concerto derived from a commission for piano and toy piano.  I intended to write that piece first and then use elements for a larger scale work.  I drafted some sketches, but then fantasy took hold, and I imagined a sort of conjuror of surreal images and situations, a character of dreams that could create the extraordinary.  I suppose this all harks back to the surreal paintings my mother painted, and the sort of visual imagery I have always loved.  There is no story, and there is no intention to create specific images.  Rather the music alludes to fantasy.  But it is steeped in tradition too.  The first movement is in a sort of sonata form; the second 'elegy' is a theme and variations; the cadenza uses material from what has come and what will come and the final movement is a passacaglia.  Certain piano concertos helped inspire specific moments: Beethoven's Emperor, Tchaikovsky's 1st, Ravel's G major, Prokofiev's 2nd and Bartok's 3rd.

Now the task is to compose the original commission...

© Paul Max Edlin 2024

The image is by Salvador Dalí (Creative Commons)

Concerto per pianoforte n. 2 - Il grande illusionista

Ensemble InterContemporain
Nicolò Umberto Foron, conductor

Premiere (live recording)
Friday 10th November 2023

60° Festival Nuova Consonanza 
Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone

© Ph: Cantarelli Marta
© Archivio Nuova Consonanza

Seeds of Light

Live recording Teatro Grande di Brescia - Three songs on the persian poetry by Rūmī - Giulia Peri, soprano - Lamberto Curtoni, Cello

Three Persian Lyrics

Orchestra Sinfonica Abruzzese
Marco Moresco, conductor

Dark Clouds, for orchestra

Please, use headphones or good loudspeakers.

MOULT (2018–19), for orchestra
commissioned by Westdeutschen Rundfunk and Wien Modern

Live Recording WDR Orchestra, 12 May 2019, Witten

MOULT (2018–19), for orchestra

Paul Max Edlin's music is published by Composers Edition. 

Paul Max Edlin, 2016/2017 Composer in Residence for the London Chamber Orchestra, has a career that combines composing with higher education, artistic direction and performing.  

His works have been performed by many leading artists including Alison Balsom, Arditti Quartet, Britten Sinfonia, David Campbell, Cantus Ansambl, Dame Sarah Connolly, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Rolf Hind, Johannes Möller, London Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Olga Pasiecznik, Psappha, Silesian Quartet, Southbank Sinfonia, Gabriella Swallow, John Wallace and The Wallace Collection and Bede Williams. 

He studied with Edwin Roxburgh, Richard Blackford and Joseph Horowitz (Royal College of Music) and Michael Finnissy (University of Sussex). He has won many prizes including Premio Internazionale Ancona, Harriet Cohen Memorial Award and United Music Publishers Prize. His music explores symbolism and often derives its inspiration from extra musical material. From the mid 80’s to mid 90’s many works were inspired by the art and architecture of South-East Asia, especially Indochina. From 2000 onward symbolism of a wider range of sources guided his music, from the chiastic structures of J.S. Bach to the writings of Gabriel García Márquez and Federico García Lorca and visual work of Frida Kahlo.

Paul Max Edlin is former Director of Music at Queen Mary University of London. He was Artistic Director of Deal Music & Arts (formerly Deal Festival) from 2004 to 2021, Sounds New (2007 to 2013), Director of International Composer Pyramid (2008-2013) and was founding Chair of the Board of Trustees of Ora Singers. He is current Executive Chair of W.E. International Music Festival, which brings eastern and western cultures together.  From 2012 to 2013 he was President of the Independent Society of Musicians (ISM), the UK's leading association for professional musicians.

Concerto per pianoforte n. 2 - Il grande illusionista

Paul Max Edlin

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