Piano Music by Robert Helps

Recollections (1959) [piano solo]

 — These three pieces showcase Helps‘ tantalizing emotional ambiguity: In memoriam, Interlude, Epilogue.
The title for the set was famously discovered while Helps was “reclining in his bathtub.”
Is this the same 1950‘s that created Pyrex and the Cold War? A needed touch of Proust for a loveless, memory-deprived era.

Total duration: 15 minutes

I — In Memoriam, for Melvin Leipzig and Ronald Markham
II — Interlude, for John David and David Douglas
III — Epilogue, for Olga Goitein

Heart-rending simplicity of Recollections movement I- In Memoriam, bars 6-10
Listen to Recollections, movement II
(live performance by Robert Helps)
Read Program note for Recollections, by Robert Helps 

View the manuscript score scanned by
Digital Commons @ University of South Florida

Sound clip - Recollections