Written for final recitals of students at the Guildhall School of Music, when teaching there during the 1970s, Standford wrote these Four Preludes designed to provide the performer with very contrasting issues that would challenge musicality by making something of phrasing and dynamics, creating atmospheres in a short space of time, making decisions about the freedom, and generally trying to convince an audience. At the time, Standford was becoming less interested in the aeliatory styles of the Polish school which he had become interested in under his influential teacher Witold Lutoslawski.

The first of the pieces is a study in quiet phrasing, exploring almost the full range of the bassoon, trying to make some contrast between the phrases like someone telling a story little by little, and the piano part quite unmoved by the passions of its partner. The second is a sort of breathless rush for a train on the point of departure. Again quietly subdued in dynamic but I felt the ff of the bassoon is most effective if used sparingly. When it arrives it can be as strong as you wish. The third is a homage to Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time which all the students were studying in performance workshops at the time. The last, is rather like ‘Furchtenmachen’ from Schumann’s ‘Kinderscenen’, the quick changes of mood between excitement and tranquility playing frightening games for children, the only one of the pieces in which the bassoon shows its potential for rugged aggression.