ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author aims to know John McCabe for the whole of his professional life both as a composer and pianist. In both roles some of the hallmarks of his work have been a consistency of purpose, amazing technical skill and attention to detail plus an engaging modesty and willingness to communicate. A few bars of a newly composed piece immediately establish a personality that has been unchanging and is easily recognisable. Vaughan Williams had a very pragmatic approach to composition when he said that he didn't sit down and think it out first and relied instead on the inner process, on instinct. Many popular features of the nineteenth-century classic/romantic canon are noticeably absent, but British composers are well represented along with a good smattering of those from America. Few mature modern composers have displayed more indifference to changing fashions during an age of exceptional change than John McCabe.
