Sinner Don't Let This Harvest Pass [CD]

On 7 August 2026, Metier Records is excited to present Sinner, Don't Let This Harvest Pass from rising pianist Joseph Havlat, featuring music by Michael Finnissy, Cassandra Miller, and Robert Schumann. This ground-breaking album includes Schumann's Geistervariationen (Ghost Variations), Finnissy's response, or allusions to, this work in his RS Geistervariationen, and Miller's Philip the Wanderer as well as the title work, Sinner, Don't Let This Harvest Pass, a rare co-composition between Finnissy and Miller, based on the well-known Afro-American spiritual. The compositions and working styles of Finnissy and Miller are a natural fit for this collaboration, the result of their long-standing friendship and correspondence.Transcription is another thread tying the works on this programme together, each composer having a unique approach. Finnissy's RS Geistervariationen (2021) contains large transcription sections of Brahms' piano duet Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op.23 and is heard alongside Schumann's original Geistervariationen. For Michael Finnissy, this process is in itself composition - he's working with the material as if it were his own, like portraiture seen through multiple lenses. As Joseph Havlat observes: 'These passages of transcribed Brahmsare melded and fused with Finnissy's own voice, creating ghostly echoes of bygone music, just as the variations themselves are ghosts of the original theme, and Schumann's theme a ghost of something else heard as well.' In between the variations are heard a series of Tropes in Finnissy's own compositional approach, acting as a musical commentary.Cassandra Miller started to write Philip the Wanderer (2012) in Canada but continued in the UK during a period of mentorship under Finnissy. Viewed by the composer as more of a 'translation' or 'adaptation' than a transcription, it draws it's source material from Mandowa II, a recording by Mozambican musician Zhukake Masingi, of which Miller generated a rhythmically hyper-rigorous computer-generated MIDI transcription. The three-movement piece reflects the rhythmic pushing-and-pulling found in the recording, with it's danceable and ultimately joyous irregularity. For their collaborative work, Sinner, Don't Let This Harvest Pass, inspired by the spiritual sung by the great Marian Anderson, Finnissy and Miller wanted to capture something of the 'inflections' and the 'mood' of her performance and not just the tune itself. They wrote alternating sections, Cassandra Miller going first and Michael Finnissy following her tonal theme, not imitating each other but more like a slow-moving conversation, mirroring their own dialogue as they created the piece.Michael Finnissy is widely regarded as one of Britain's most important living composers and teachers, his prolific output including solo instrumental, chamber, and choral works as well as songs and works for stage. To mark his 80th birthday earlier this year, Metier released a 10-volume digital box set, Michael Finnissy: The Complete Metier Collection from 1998-2026.The composition methods of Canadian-British composer Cassandra Miller incorporate unique meditation-based practices, and her works have been performed by ensembles and orchestras across the UK, Europe, and the US. 'Music this uncalculatedly beautiful leaves you almost desperate with gratitude' -Alex Ross, The New Yorker.Australian pianist and composer Joseph Havlat is based in London. A leading interpreter of modern and contemporary music, he performs as a soloist and chamber musician in major concert venues around the UK, Europe, America, Japan, and Australia. He currently teaches piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music. His previous recording of Michael Finnissy's vocal music, Alternative Readings with Lotte Betts-Dean and the Marsyas Trio, was released on Metier.