Classical Sessions: Martin James Bartlett

Recorded in the beautiful acoustics of Saffron Hall, pianist Martin James Bartlett’s Classical Session showcases four ingenious piano arrangements. He opens with Stephen Hough’s versions of two songs composed by the English composer Amy Woodforde-Finden while living in India: “Kashmiri Song” and “Till I Wake”. “These songs came to me because I sang them with a dear friend,” Bartlett tells Apple Music, “so I first knew them in their original form. But then I heard Stephen Hough’s arrangements on one of his albums. He uses the entire breadth of the piano, from the rich bass to the sparkling high notes, and that allows for a huge variety of colour, adding to the impassioned feeling of the words.” Bartlett moves next to the African-American spiritual “Deep River” and an arrangement by his friend, the jazz musician Julian Joseph. “I first heard it on YouTube as an improvisation, but then I saw him at the Royal Albert Hall one day, and begged him to write it down for me,” reveals Bartlett. “You can hear the beautiful harmonic changes that he adds underneath the traditional melody.” His session finishes with another spiritual, “Wade in the Water”, this time in the form of the piano fantasy “Troubled Water” by Margaret Bonds, who, in 1933, became the first African-American soloist ever to perform with a major American orchestra, the Chicago Symphony. “Bonds was a virtuoso pianist and added some real pyrotechnics into the piece,” says Bartlett, “all of which make it quite an exciting experience to play.”