EP Arning (feat. Mompou & EPA) Video (MV)

So here it is

Model K Steinway from 1930

I suppose if this is a tribute I should play a little something

I hope this is okay Dad

Yes, alright, sorry I'm doing my best here

Hello, my name is Patrick Arning

Conveyancing sage
Magic Circle lawyer
Mertonian, Classicist, Horatian
Presumptive High Court judge
Amplefordian
Conqueror of the Grand Tetons
Reciter of the names of the Kings of England
Member of the British Astronomical Association
Japanese Society Book Club member, father

Dad collapsed at the Wigmore Hall at a concert in June 2023 and since then I've been obsessed with the sound of his piano

I don't think because he used to play the piano so much and get so much joy and calm out of it that I don't think we quite realised when he was alive

How much it was a place where he put all those difficult feelings maybe he couldn't name or vocalise...

Maybe a bit like me with poetry and Hip-Hop

I don't know what my Dad would make of this EP. He never really fathomed hip-hop music

I remember him once likening rappers to auctioneers - why are they always shouting, darling

But I'd like to think he would appreciate the creativity and outspokenness on this album and perhaps it's something he wanted to do more in his lifetime

Federico Mompou was composing at the beginning of the 20th century in Catalunya

Mainly solo piano music

And Dad absolutely loved him

Mum says he first encountered Mompou's music in the alleys of Barcelona back in the 1950s when he was a schoolboy and he's played him ever since

I decided to call the album Mompou's dream perhaps as a nod to Thelonious Monk's classic album
I used to play Round Midnight on the clarinet Dad on piano

And whilst you could say Mompou himself could have never dreamed this up yet his aesthetic of a quiet personal, spiritual work done for its own reward

Something intimate, solitary, a bit eccentric - maybe there's a magical destiny there

Poulenc and Bach, Debussy and Satie

Rachmaninov Ravel, Schumann and Scarlatti

He played them all, And not at a set time

Whether on a Yamaha, Steinway or a Bechstein

Upright or Grand, With his left or right hand

He'd dash off a ragtime, Maybe a Saraband

His mind rained notes, Every day a deluge

Glenn Gould Fugues, Not to mention Preludes

Fauré and Mendelssohn, Joplin and Lizst

His repertoire? Everyone! No-one would be missed

Engrossed in music, Beethoven Brahms

He'd play piano for hours, And have no qualms

Constant Radio 3, Medtner and Mahler

With Rachael and Me, Vocalise Scheherazade

Wigmore Hall with Mum, every week he'd want to

Underrated in your life, just like Mompou

Mompou, Yes Yes

Mompou once said that "silent music is the sound of solitude"

Mompou, Yes Yes

I miss you Dad

Now that I thought was AMAZING