The Composer Portraits series offers unique and original monographs on individual composers. Text and music introductions written byexperts are combined with carefully chosen selections of newly-engraved music to give a concise but informed overview of the life and work of each composer. This edition focuses on the life and works of the English composer Lennox Berkeley. Edited by Sam Lung, with notes by Michael Berkeley and Peter Dickinson. Music includes: Polka Op 5/1a, Moderato from Firve Short Pieces Op 4, Moderato from Three Impromptus Op 7, Berceuse from Three Pieces for Piano Op 2, Allegro moderato and Andante from Six Preludes Op 23, Presto (2nd movement) from Piano Sonata Op 20, Improvisation on a theme by Manuel de Falla, Presto leggiero from Four Piano Studies Op 82, Mazurka Op 101/2.

Written when Berkeley was studying with Nadia Boulanger, this sonata was premiered by Yvonne Astruc and Madeleine Grovlez for the Société musicale indépendante at the Ecole normale de musique in Paris in 1932.

Composed during a major revival for the harpsichord, while Berkeley was in Paris studying under Nadia Boulanger.

Score and Parts. Commissioned by Colin Horsley. Premiered in the Victoria and Albert Museum by Manoung Parikian, Dennis Brain and Colin Horsley, March 1954.