Ronald Center (1913–73) is sometimes described as ‘the Scottish Bartók’, and his music does indeed capture some of the wild energy of the Scottish landscape in a style of Bartókian asperity. It shows affinities with the music of Busoni, Debussy, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams, absorbed into an individual style that is audibly Scots.

Center wrote with striking concision and meticulous craftsmanship, his works encompassing a range of emotions – heart-felt sorrow, grim humour, relaxed lyricism, dark despair – in a crisp and succinct manner, animated by sharp wit and irony. 

April 2013 saw the centenary of Center’s birth, an anniversary unmarked in his native Scotland. This release came about through the efforts of three expatriate Scots: the pianist Christopher Guild, writer and Center expert James Reid Baxter and record-label-owner Martin Anderson of Toccata Classics. Center’s best-known student is the broadcaster James Naughtie, who has written fondly of his old teacher.

The Scottish pianist Christopher Guild has appeared as a Park Lane Group Young Artist in the Purcell Room of the South Bank Centre in London, and the Wigmore Hall. He is a strong advocate of contemporary and lesser-known repertoire. Born in Elgin in 1986 and brought up on Speyside, Christopher Guild studied piano and violin locally before entering St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh, aged thirteen. He returned to Morayshire one year later to take top honours in the Moray Piano Competition – the youngest-ever winner to this day. He entered the Royal College of Music in 2005 as a Foundation Scholar, and remained there under the tutelage of Andrew Ball until 2011, successfully gaining a First Class BMus (Hons), and the MMus and Artist Diploma’s with Distinction.