Steps (piano cycle series) is a set of large-scale piano works written by British composer Peter Seabourne (b.1960), currently standing at 11 volumes (220 pieces) of approximately 9 hours total duration. Each cycle is based around a theme and comprises a sequence of often poetically entitled movements.

The cycles

The first volume (2001-4) marked the composer's return to composition after a 12-year silence. Originally simply a series of standalone pieces, it was only subsequently gathered into an anthology. However, from the second volume onwards the works are conceived as integrated single spans in the manner of Janacek's On an Overgrown Path, or Schumann's Carnaval.

The Italian CD label Sheva has recorded volumes 1–5, and vol. 8 with pianists Minjeong Shin, Giovanni Santini, Michael Bell, Fabio Menchetti, and Alessandro Viale. Volume 6 was released in May 2022 by Konstantin Lifschitz on Willowhayne Records.. The CDs have been reviewed in Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, Musical Opinion, International Piano, Piano News, Hudební rozhledy and many other magazines. Numerous live performances have taken place in Europe, Armenia, The United States of America and Japan, including by Alessandro Viale, Fabio Menchetti, Konstantin Lifschitz, Minjeong Shin, Michael Bell, Bethel Balge, Giuseppe Modugno, Haruko Seki, Chantal Balestri, Simone Rugani, Andrea Emanuele, Ettore Strangio, Giordano De Nisi, Emanuele Stracchi, Paolo Rinaldi, Barbara Panzarella, Giulia Grassi, Francesca Fierro, Isabella Gori, Letitia Amodio, Francesca Lauri, Sarah Vella, Daphne Delicata, Alvaro Siculiana, Julian Chan, Tsovinar Suflyan and Mikhail Shilyaev.

The composer's musical language is loosely tonal but is often stretched to include elements of polytonality, modality and free atonality. In Musical Opinion, Richard Whitehouse wrote of "a demonstrably Romantic rhetoric with an always audible and yet never facile approach to tonality".Richard Whitehouse. Musical Opinion Quarterly Issue 1508, p16. June 2016 A striking feature throughout is the use of rhythm, described by one reviewer as "amazingly inventive" [of Volume 2]. This involves a widespread, subtle stretching of both individual beats and metre giving the music a feeling of flux and ongoing rubato.

Complete listing

Volume 1: An anthology for piano (2001-4):

Greeting! Still The Little White Girl El Suspiro del Moro Split The Lark... Suspended Journeys I. 19 II. Black III. A Touch Little Scene Over The Ocean Awake! The Sun - just touched the Morning! In Winter 1. Im Windesweben 2. An Baches Ranft 3. Winter Landscape with Rocks 4. Noch zwingt mich treue 5. The Lark in Winter 6. The Rose in Winter Trois Petits Adieux 1. (Crotchet=76) 2. Playful yet poignant 3. Sombre

Volume 2: Studies of Invention (2007): Flying Machines Sixty Beggars Old Man with Water Studies Study of a Woman's Hands The Kite of the Cradle Tank Polishing Imperfections in Glass A Moth to the Light Perspectives of Disappearance La Scapigliata The Existence of Nothingness The Impossibility of Perpetual Motion Lenses for Looking at the Moon Study of a Deluge This is the Way Birds Descend

Volume 3: Arabesques (2012):

1. The Bright Window 2. Generalife - daybreak (I am the garden, revealed in beauty every morning) 3. Melted silver, pearls, tears, clouds 4. Dark Day 5. Fountains 6. Hamann Baths - blue secrets 7. Mid-Afternoon -The Red Fort 8. Water Gardens - the dark watchers - early evening 9. Dream - domes of mocárabes

Volume 4: Libro di Canti Italiano (2011)

Canto della Vita Domande Viaggio di Notte Piccolo Canto d'Amore Tremante Piccolo Canto delle Gocce di Pioggia Canto I miei Sogni Passi Sbagliati - Canzone Bacchica Canto della Ragazza da Toulouse Canto delle Farfalle Carillon Triste Canto d'Ammutinamento Notturno Canto Burbero Canto Lontano Anche gli Uccelli - Souvenir de Bertinoro Canto Oscuro Canto delle Foglie Cadenti Canzonetta in Stile Antico (omaggio da Robin Holloway) Canto Gioioso

Volume 5: Sixteen Scenes Before a Crucifixion (2014)

no.1 no.2 no 3 no.4 no.5 no.6 no.7 no.8 no.9 no.10 no.11 no.12 no.13 no.14 no.15 no.16

Volume 6: Toccatas and Fantasias (2017)

Toccata no.1 Fantasia Lachryma Toccata no.2 Fantasia Tragica Toccata no.3 Fantasia Tenebrosa Toccata no.4 Fantasia Meditativa Toccata no.5 Fantasia Malinconica Toccata no.6 Aria Sarabanda con variazioni

Volume 7: Dances on the Head of a Pin (2019)

1. Spanish Sun Dance 2. Sand Dance 3. Galumph 4. Musing Dance 5. Uncertain Steps 6. Doll's Dance 7. River Dance 8. Weaving Dance 9. Minuet, or even a Sarabande 10. Snake Dance 11. One False Step 12. Spiteful Dance 13. How Still the Dancer Lies 14. Dance of Death 15. Lollop 16. Un-Ravelling Dance 17. Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight! 18. Impatient Mazurka 19. Pas des Deux: L'Ancien et la Jeune Danseuse 20. First Attempts at a Pirhouette 21. The Lead Dancer Shows his Mettle 22. Three Legs 23. Pavan for a Revived Princess 24. Danse Françaix? 25. Bacchanalian Whirl 26. Slow Movement 27. The Amazing Dance of the Peacock Spider 28. Tread Softly... 29. Stamping Dance 30. Helter Skelter 31. Hop of Hope - with Harp 32. Carefully, Carefully! Slow Sword Dance 33. Snap Shot - Ecossaise 34. With How Sad Steps 35. Hobble 36. Unreel 37. Before a Tarantella 38. Tarantella

Volume 8: My Song in October (2021)

1. Komorebi 2. How beautifully it falls 3. At the fall of the leaf 4. When the leaves are flying 5. This leaf 6. When the rose is dead 7. The drifting leaf 8. One by one 9. On the wings of the breeze 10. The leaves are falling 11. Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! 12. As a dead leaf 13. The wind scatters the golden leaves! 14. Every breath 15. Listen... 16. After Autumn, Winter 17. The wind whispers in dry leaves 18. This sprig of heather 19. Who'll toll the bell?

Volume 9: Les Fleurs de la Maladie (2021)

An Empty Bench - My Garden (1881) Snowdrops (now is the globe shrunk tight) Imagined Bouquet from Berthe Morisot Helleborus Foetidus (hope in winter) Imagined Bouquet from Suzanne Manet Tulips (the flame) Imagined Bouquet from Antonin Proust Dandelions in flower and in seed (any way the wind blows) Imagined Bouquet from Stéphane Mallarmé Delphinium (nothing can restrain this heart) Imagined Bouquet from Victorine Meurent Lilies on a Windowsill (outside-in) Imagined Bouquet from Charles Baudelaire Rosa Glauca (departures) Imagined Bouquet from Émmanuel Chabrier Marigolds on a blue chair (last summer) Imagined Bouquet from Méry Laurent An Empty Chair - My Garden (2020)

Volume 10: In a Grain of Sand (2023)

1. I look through you at the sun 2. You ignite your own fire 3. Reverberate through hidden mossy chambers 4. Long stony corridors and marine gems 5. Patiently rethinking the world 6. Dissolving like honey on God's tongue 7. With a nonchalant gesture you put to my eye 8. A lens of magnificent refractions 9. To my ear, a curious sound 10. First, a rumbling, then, surrender 11. At last, the beatific moment when you fly in the air 12. With a stellar whoosh… 13. A wonder that does not know of itself 14. As all marvels are, innocent 15. Of aggrandizing and human drama 16. Spending of itself inexhaustibly 17. In prisms of glory and enigmatic hexagons 18. A grain of sand is a sun 19. Much closer to us than any other revelation planets.

20. A letter full of breaths has arrived 21. A nameless sender's courtesy to me 22. The hand is puzzling, grains of sand 23. Pour in the heart, and plunge in opened earth 24. Time is passing without progressing 25. The sundial memorializes someone's joy in a return 26. Stunned language of silence, unvoiced throat, 27. Pigments of longing infuse our reunions 28. Who has been calling all night 29. In the realm of air and water? 30. Watching with eyes of wild birds 31. Breathing with lungs of tuft and grasses? 32. Shall I call you a Shadow? 33. Lithe body of quiet revolt 34. Your sleeves are as light as sails 35. Quickening a boat towards darkness 36. The river of love and death is ready to swallow 37. Our pleasure trips into what caused us pain 38. A silver fish's splash submerges in a last lingering chord.

Volume 11: The Curious Diary of Mr Doyle (2024)

1. Something queer both in head and heart 2. If our supporters fell out! 3. Quite the reverse (Madam : Dam Mad) 4. Portrait of a gentleman 5. A wearing of the green 6. Prevention is better than cure! 7. Cupid and the gay Lutharian 8. The polecat and the maiden 9. Saluting Miss May 10. The dreadful secret 11. Genuine Columbine 12. An angel taking a soul to Heaven 13. Stop thief! 14. Tommy's poppy... 15. Ranken's listener 16. A windy walk 17. Polished ways (what a delicious little romance this opens up) 18. Another sort of creeper 19. She soars - glimpse of high flyers (a floor polisher's fantasy) 20. Friendly but sorrowful... (where Pussy used to sit at home) 21. The close embrace 22. Sunnyside afternoon 23. Gloria in excelsis! 24. Come home

References

External links Composer's website YouTube playlist from commercial recordings of volumes 1-5