OK by Me - A Life in Encores

Two-time Gramophone Award winner Steven Osborne presents OK by me, a deeply personal collection unlike any album he has made before. Bringing together works with autobiographical significance alongside music spanning classical, modernist and jazz influences, Osborne creates what he describes as “a line through my musical life”.

The programme includes Liadov’s A Musical Snuffbox, recalling his mother’s musical jewellery box; Poulenc’s Novelettes, which helped secure his first Wigmore Hall recital; Peter Maxwell Davies’s Farewell to Stromness; and James Clapperton’s Haar.

Improvisations and arrangements also feature prominently, including music inspired by Keith Jarrett, Joni Mitchell and Sir Michael Tippett. The album opens with Osborne’s own composition, OK by me, which came to him fully formed one morning while practising.

1. Osborne: OK by Me
2. Bach/Petri: Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd!, BWV 208 – Movement 10: Sheep May Safely Graze
3. Grieg: Lyric Pieces, Book 3, Op. 43 – No. 1, “Butterfly”: Sommerfugl
4. Liadov: A Musical Snuffbox, Op. 32
5. Kreisler/Rachmaninov: 3 Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen – No. 2: Liebesleid
6. Schumann: Drei Romanzen, Op. 28 – No. 2 in F-sharp major: Einfach
7. Clapperton: Haar
8. Maxwell Davies: Farewell to Stromness
9. Doucet: Isoldina
10. Gershwin: Three Preludes – No. 1: Allegro ben ritmato e deciso
11. Gershwin: Three Preludes – No. 2: Andante con moto e poco rubato
12. Gershwin: Three Preludes – No. 3: Allegro ben ritmato e deciso
13. Dushkin/Osborne: Sicilienne
14. Schumann/Osborne: Myrthen, Op. 25 – No. 1: Widmung
15. Osborne: Improvisation on the Final Chord of Sir Michael Tippett’s The Ice Break
16. Jarrett/Osborne: My Song
17. Prokofiev: Ten Pieces, Op. 12 – No. 7 in C major: Prelude
18. Poulenc: Novelette in C major, FP 47 No. 1
19. Poulenc: Novelette in B-flat minor, FP 47 No. 2
20. Poulenc: Novelette sur un thème de Manuel de Falla, FP 173
21. Monk (M): Railroad “Travel Song”
22. Mitchell/Osborne: A Case of You
23. Osborne: Improvisation on Keith Jarrett’s Vienna Concert