William BAINES 1899 — 1922

William Baines was born in Horbury in Yorkshire in 1899. A talented pianist, he was also a prolific composer: although he died tragically young, he wrote some two hundred works, and naturally the majority of these were for solo piano. Second-hand copies of his published works can still be found, and I have a substantial collection.

Recently Lyrita have released a CD of performances in 1971 by Eric Parkin of a group of Baines's piano pieces together with some by EJ Moeran (Lyrita SRCD.265). In a review of this CD, Peter Joelson expresses the opinion that "Most of the best of his piano-writing is collected on this CD": the works in question are Silverpoints, Paradise Gardens, Coloured Leaves, Twilight Pieces, Tides, and Seven Preludes. Being broadly in agreement with this judgement, I intend in due course to provide all these Baines pieces (and more) on this site — and have made a start with Tides, because Goodnight to Flamboro' is one of my favourites. Incidentally this is also the title of the excellent account of the life and music of William Baines by Roger Carpenter (Triad Press 1977, ISBN 0 902070 23 3).

You can also find information on the internet about William Baines, for example from the British Library and from Richard Bell's charming page.

Comments are welcome. Please write to williamww@aol.com    Last modified: 14 May  2009.