November 2024 saw the release of Sad Piano on ABC Classics, an album of eleven solo pieces by Matthew Hindson, performed by Andrea Lam. It takes its title from Hindson’s 2022 volume of thirteen piano works composed during lockdown, which represent Hindson’s own take on the popular listening trend of “sad piano music” on streaming platforms. Click here to purchase or stream online
“I started this collection during the Covid-19 lockdown,’ says Hindson, ‘when music making was smashed and the connection between composer, performer and audience wasn’t possible any more. Suddenly, the large symphonic works I was writing seemed irrelevant. I wanted to write intimate music, music directly connecting to our emotions and to other people.” Purchase Sad Piano from the Faber Music online shop here.
Its intimate, tender character ploughs a different furrow to Hindson’s orchestral and stage works, with their extravagant timbral palette and highly-energetic character, infused with the spirit of disco, pop, rock, and techno. In Sad Piano sweetness and melancholy, memories and hopes, and love and longing embrace one another in the heartfelt, uplifting resonances of the piano.
Lam, who has given numerous performances of Sad Piano in concert across Australia, sensed an immediate connection with the pieces. “This is very introspective, very intimate music that is, I think, very particular to the piano; almost a confessional diary. Those deepest thoughts you have, when you’re by yourself and you can’t even articulate what you’re thinking. Matthew’s music has a really direct appeal: it’s a very visceral kind of music that has an immediate effect, an immediate impact, which I love.” Watch Lam perform Love from the collection here.
Sad Piano premiered at the Sydney Opera House’s International Piano Day celebrations in 2022, with the film clip for the track Love winning the 2023 Australian Cinematographers Society’s Gold Tripod award. “What’s so powerful”, notes Hindson, “is the way that these pieces, while sad and melancholic in mood, are, paradoxically, able to make us feel comforted, supported, even uplifted.”