The English composer Michael Brough (born in Yorkshire in 1960) is rather an unusual character: he is also a full-time solicitor. Late in 2013, with a commission from the Swaledale Festival, he sat down at his piano and began to improvise the first of what would become 25 Picture-Preludes, in the major and minor keys. Like Rachmaninov’s Études-Tableaux and Medtner’s Skazki, these short pieces are intended to stimulate a response in the listener’s imagination. Indeed, Rachmaninov and Medtner are audible influences on Brough’s bluesy, late-Romantic musical language. This recording was made on the ‘Bösendorfer 290’, a piano with an extended range in the bass.

Michael Brough was educated at Leeds University, where he was the chaplaincy organist from 1980 to 1982. He qualified as a solicitor in 1988 and still advises on property and private client law. He has been one of the organists at Holy Trinity Sloane Street, Chelsea, in central London, continuously since 1986. As a composer, he has above all written songs; there is also chamber music, including a half-hour bass-clarinet sonata; sacred and choral music; and a few pieces for organ.