The pummeling piano for after-modernity.
scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 02/20/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"One can never argue with great piano playing, performances inspired transcending the actual music, Beyond the Four Corners of the Page.
What can one say for the modern piano and what has become of it? The continuing violence of the century of the turmoils and deep rooted hatreds that still exist throughout the populace spills toward the productions of culture.
Here we see mostly the pummeled piano, perhaps in its post-electronic manifestations,resounded just about to death, perhaps the repression of the aesthetic living in exile makes for the hysteric. At least Lacan would admit this;(the subvesive is always a step from the hysteric); or is it the vigours of modernity itself never allowed to realize itself, co-opted,forced to jump through market hoops? that forces composers to go after the juggler.
The music here however is accessible, there are no alienation schemes at work, perhaps most of the music herein suggests some darkness that have yet to resolved themselves, itselves from the modernist, or after modernist paradigm. Viver's "Shiraz" is quite powerful, Shiraz was the Persian capital at the foothills of the Zagros Mountains of the Zand dynasty. Here the music doesn't let you go, rolling in encapsulated violence. You cannot say it belongs to any school, perhaps Xenakis is the closest reference here. The piece packs a punch,not quite a professional boxer's punch perhaps a composer's. Likewise Elliott Sharp's "Suberrebus"; "rebus" is Latin for "Things", so perhaps "below things",the darknesses, tunnels of New York City.;his is an incredibly free-standing work, full of raw combustible energy,unfinished scaling all the registers of the piano, yet again its musical language does not suggest anywheres to go, it is fully contained within itself.This is the best piece of Sharp I've heard,Uusually his music scales too far into the self-indulgent side. Here the piano solo has its own sets of problematics that he realizes quite nicely. I'd like to hear this work live, it would be even more powerful; resonding, resonanting.
The Gervasioni piece is very gently beautiful, deeply lyrical. He crafts and hones his music very well, lapidarian,like a diamond cutter, very sparce, threadbare, very Italian for his generation. The music begins in the upper tinckly register of the piano and slowly descends,yet it is not rushed it takes its own time of where it wants to go. But you become swept away by the evocations/invocations of the well-crafted selected intervals.
And Kampela's work as well, the "Nosturnos" owes nothing to the minimal cause although that might be your first impression,look a little deeper; in that it/he finds his own voice, allowing the intervals to speak for themselves. The music takes the time necessary to convey this.
The Nordschow engages gratuitously in an old pointillism that seems to be still with us,like a lingua franca,this could have been the young Boulez, but here there is less anxiety, and more freedom, like he is simply trying this musical language to see if it still holds something to exploit. Still the over all freedoms scouring all registers of the piano is thrilling, exciting in an unpretencious way.
Ligeti, these three "etudes" are from the more reflective Third Book, the "White on White is missing another one that took the break-neck speed of Book 2 to slow down the set;All these Etudes are part now of the repertoire for all pianists.The indebtedness to Conlon Nancarrow is not always apparent, but Ligeti always had this affinity for "musical automata",all his works exhibit this content. I suppose you need to learn all of them if you want to keep up with selling yourself as a modern pianist these days. I grow bored with these "Etudes" you hear them once and they exhaust their own constitution,long before the work is over. More pummeling again, deeply accessible. Ligeti is a genius enough to know his materials and does impart a means for their own longevity.This Book 3 Etudes redeems the others.
All the playing is incredible, wonderful clean and energized piano playing, clean and precise, yet the irrational content of the music is given what it needs."
Track Listings (9) - Disc #1