Born in Wales, Christopher Williams leads a busy and varied professional life as a pianist, composer, conductor, teacher and arranger. He is currently a staff pianist at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, piano tutor at Cardiff University, and pianist for both the BBC National Chorus of Wales and BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

Influenced by his teacher and mentor Walter Ryan, Williams developed a keen interest in the performance and recording of works by undeservedly neglected composers, culminating in the release of three albums of world premiere recordings by the composer Semyon Barmotin.

In addition to his work as a soloist, Williams is in great demand as an accompanist and chamber musician, and has partnered many of the prominent instrumentalists of his generation including Philippe Schartz, Tim Thorpe, David Childs, David Pyatt, Tine Thing Helseth and Anneke Scott. Williams’ longest musical partnership is with his wife, oboist Catherine Tanner-Williams, and has resulted in world premiere performances and recordings.

His recording of Brahms transcriptions for Grand Piano (GP749) was featured as album of the week on NDR Kultur.

christopherwilliamspiano.com

Semyon Alexeyevich Barmotin was born in St Petersburg on 26 January 1877 and so his personality as a composer was shaped in very different times—the final days of Tsarist Russia in the late 19th century. His father, a peasant from Tambov province, served in one of the grenadier regiments at the imperial palace. His mother, who also came from a peasant family, this time from the St Petersburg region, noticed her son’s musical gifts when he was still a small boy.

In 1883, not long after Alexander III’s accession to the imperial throne, Mily Balakirev was appointed musical director at the Court Kapella, whose men and boy choristers sang at the court church services. The institution provided the boys with both a general and musical education, and it was in this context that Barmotin began music studies with Balakirev.

Between 1899 and 1901, he studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov at the St Petersburg Conservatory and even before graduating as an external student in 1903 had begun teaching at the Kapella. He went on to teach at the Kherson music school and then, on his return to St Petersburg, gave private lessons. From 1919 to 1923 he was director of choral singing for the Baltic fleet, and from 1923 to 1925 taught at the Petrograd Conservatory.

Particularly notable among his later works is the Poème symphonique, Op. 30, written in 1930 and dedicated to the memory of his teacher Balakirev, who had died 20 years earlier. Barmotin’s other surviving works include several occasional pieces that reflect the tumultuous period through which he lived, such as the Hymn to Comrade Stalin (1936) and October Victory, a march-cantata to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution (1937).

Gérald Hugon