H92 Six Studies after Messerschmidt (2020)

Programme note:

The ʻSix Studies after Messerschmidtʼ for piano solo are a response to the ʻcharacter headʼ busts of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, which I first came across many years ago (possibly decades) in the Belvedere Museum in Vienna. He was a German-Austrian sculptor active during the second half of the 18th century. They depict extreme facial expressions and can be by turns disturbing and/or comical. They have an immediate impact on the viewer, not unlike his own response to a series of severe pinches that he gave to his ribs that caused these very expressions which he observed in a mirror so he could record them in marble or bronze. The 49 surviving heads (heʼd projected that there would be 66) were not given titles by Messerschmidt himself, but by an anonymous writer known only as ʻthe author of the forthright letter on sheep husbandry in Bohemia and Austriaʼ who went on to publish ʻThe Curious Life History of Franz Xaver Messerschmidtʼ. Messerschmidt had hoped that the completed collection of heads would have an apotropaic effect dispelling the sinister forces that he sensed were shadowing him. The six heads that I have chosen are ʻAn Arch- Rascalʼ, ʻSecond Beak Headʼ, ʻThe Defiant Oneʼ, ʻThe Difficult Secretʼ, ʻThe Ultimate Simpletonʼ and ʻThe Yawnerʼ. They can be played in any order at the pianist's discretion. 

These pieces were written in March 2020 and revised in January 2024.

SH
21 January 2024