Postcards was written in 1991 for the Vega Wind Quintet who first performed it at the Huddersfield Festival in the same year. It is a reworking of a set of eight Bagatelles written in 1965: each movement has been rewritten and enlarged to a greater or lesser extent. The title was chosen to emphasise the nature of the pieces which are in a sense brief postcards from different genres (fugato dance etc). John McCabe (1939-2015) was a British composer pianist and music administrator. He studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music and built a career as a virtuoso pianist. However he also wrote several hundred musical compositions ranging from large-scale orchestral works to chamber music and solo instrumental pieces - it is said the only classical genre he did not write for was opera.
