Steps Volume 3 - Arabesques - piano solo - 2008-2012

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

"In a word, the true aesthetic of Granada is the aesthetic of the diminutive, of tiny things, and her true creations are the little chamber, the mirador of lovely, small proportions, the small garden or statue." Federico García Lorca

A visit to the Alhambra in Granada sowed seeds... On visiting my aunt, the painter Ann Seabourne, I discovered that the same had happened to her, quite independently. We had, indeed, both already finished pieces in response to our trips (mine El Suspiro del Moro from Steps Volume 1), but the idea was hatched that further work might cross-fertilise, stimulate and potentially develop in tandem.

This piano cycle was not to be some kind of "translation" of the paintings. There would instead be "diverse encounters" between us, exploring motif, detail, forgotten corner, calligraphic resonance, metaphor and atmosphere. Some of this would be independently conceived; some related to shared direct experience; some a response to the others' subsequent "art". It proved a sustained and fruitful collaboration over three years.

As with my previous set, Studies of Invention, I had the intention to explore "the experience" as much as "the observed". ["I close my eyes to see" - Paul Gaugin]

An exhibition and recital was given at the Clothmakers' Hall, Leeds University in 2014 by Michael Bell and repeated at Keele University in 2018. It will be re-run at Peterborough Art Gallery in 2025.

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