My second sonata was commissioned by my friend Peter Baxter-Ludlow for his retirement and reflects upon eight stages of life: 1 Enigma / Music Box, 2 Innocence, 3 Curiosity, 4 Adventure, 5 Understanding / Joy, 6 Fear, 7 Resignation and 8 Peace. The work bursts into life out of two chords. There follows a Music Box theme. Music is our companion throughout life. As soon as we open the box and discover its magic we know we will never be alone. Innocence is a fleeting portrait of childhood. Curiosity has a wandering, hesitant and playful quality. I quote a melody from one of my earliest compositions for flute and piano. Adventure has a feeling of John Williams film music about it. Williams’ music was the first orchestral music I loved as a child and it planted the seeds for my interest in Romantic and 20th Century music. Understanding / Joy is the romantic melodic heart of the work. In Fear we realise we’ve grown older and are no longer invincible. There follows a sardonic feeling and then Resignation. At the end we reflect and try to find peace. The Prelude in C minor is a flowing but melancholic piece using pop like rhythms. There are two pieces in memoriam. The first is one of two pieces I dedicated to the actress Laura Sadler who died tragically after falling from a balcony in 2003 aged 22. (The second Waltz For Laura is included in Volume 1). The Prelude in A minor was dedicated to the broadcaster, writer and LSE lecturer Geoffrey Stern following his death in 2005. Geoffrey was a self taught composer who as a student at the LSE part composed and conducted an opera, 'The Happy Deception' which was attended by Vaughan Williams. In later life he returned to his love of composing and was devoting time to getting his works performed. I became a friend of Geoffrey through helping to edit his scores and accompanying some of his songs for part of a concert with tenor Paul Martyn-West. Geoffrey told me he regretted not devoting more of his life to music and that politics did not mean as much. Just as he was finding happiness in his music and personal life he suffered a fatal heart attack eight months after his 70th birthday. The prelude has a hint of English music and was based on an early piece I wrote at school. The gentle Waltz in A is followed by a little Prelude in A which I wrote at school. It is one of the first pieces I remember writing. Samba is an energetic romp with South America rhythms and a catchy melody. 70s TV is a fun impression of some of the jazz/funk influenced theme music from American shows and films I grew up watching on TV. The Prelude in G major bares the dedication ‘to my father’ and was written in 1994 just as I was starting to think of my opera Heaven On Earth. The opera was written for a Masters degree at Bristol University. Not being able to find a story I wrote a script with school friend and horror film director Kelly Smith. My university friend the musician Jason Sparkes from the folk band Spriro wrote additional lyrics. It’s a large and ambitious work in three acts which encompasses opera, jazz and the musical very much in the manner of Porgy and Bess and West Side Story. The result is a raucous romantic black comedy about a student frustrated in love and the mayhem which engulfs the five central characters one night at a school reunion. The music is meticulously constructed to follow the relevant characters’ motifs and to give the most natural speech inflections whilst doing so. It is written in clear sections of libretto, dialogue and songs. The first act sets up the characters. The second contains most of the mayhem and the most original and dazzling music. The third act has a few more twists in store. The overture takes musical themes from the first and third acts without giving away the plot. I was keen not to have the same problems Beethoven had with his overture to Fidelio! The whole opera literally evolved out of the opening bars of this overture. The song It isn’t even if comes at the very end of Act 1 where Liz reflects a little more honestly about her infatuation. I dedicated it to Dudley Moore who I’m pleased to say told me he liked it. Steve Law (b.1973) is a composer and pianist from London who studied music at Bristol University, receiving M Mus for his jazz opera Heaven on Earth which was described as ‘a significant contribution to the genre’. His transcriptions and arrangements for musicians such as Rena Fruchter, Jack Gibbons and Geoffrey Stern have been performed in the UK and US. His note for note transcriptions of Dudley Moore’s album Songs Without Words are published by Faber. Steve’s music is characterised by melody, expressive harmony and rhythmic drive, fusing together pop, jazz and classical influences. Musicweb International reviewed his first CD of piano music as ‘kaleidoscopically varied works......engagement with melody, subtle shifting impressionistic atmosphere, jazzy syncopation….slowly burning passion’.