Piano Works: Anthony Burgess and Maurice Ravel

You are invited to join us to celebrate the launch of Piano Works Volume 2, a new collection of piano music by Anthony Burgess.

Best known for his dystopian science fiction and comic novels, Burgess also composed more than 250 musical works, including a symphony, a piano concerto, two Broadway musicals, chamber music, and settings of poets including T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins and James Joyce.

Following in the footsteps of his father – a piano-player in pubs and silent cinemas – Burgess always identified the piano as his main instrument. For this reason, his most substantial body of musical writing is for solo piano.

Piano Works Volume 2 is released on the Prima Facie label, and it follows their earlier Burgess recording, The Piano Music of Anthony Burgess, from 2015. The album includes a world premiere recording of Burgess’s previously unknown Suite for Four Hands, performed by Ian Buckle and Richard Casey.

At the concert, Richard Casey will play a lively selection of piano works by Ravel and Burgess, including new discoveries from the Burgess Foundation’s archive, which have never been performed before an audience.

Best known for his Boléro and the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, Maurice Ravel was one of Anthony Burgess’s most admired composers. In the essay ‘Unravelling Ravel’, Burgess writes about his enjoyment of Ravel’s jazzy dances in the opera L'Enfant et les Sortilèges.

Entry to the concert is free, but we do ask you to reserve tickets in advance.

The Burgess Bar will be open before and after the concert.

We will be selling the new CD and copies of the Carcanet book The Devil Prefers Mozart, containing Burgess’s complete writings on music.

Friday 21 November 2025, doors 7pm, concert 7.30pm, free admission

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Host or Publisher International Anthony Burgess Foundation