Search - Christian Wolff, Caroline Kohlsaat, Sally Pinkas :: Bread and Roses: Piano Works by Christian Wolff, 1976-1983

Gifted,brilliant playing,Pinkas has unlocked the mysteries

03/30/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Christian Wolff writes extremely diffucult music, not ferocious technique, there is that, but part of his musical aesthetic, was/is the interpretive freedom he has always allowed the performers of his music. This is a holdover from the libertarian freedoms of John Cage, a direct early influence. Around the late Sixties, Wolff along with many practicioners of the avant-garde saw themselves as writing a music that was only committed to itself, a self-referential aesthetic that only sought to soar higher in the sky than the next. These "11 Preludes" utilize old Wobbly tunes, and Labour songs. But Wolff unlike Cornelius Cardew, or Frederic Rzewski didn't completly abandon the conceptual achievements of the avant-garde. So here we have a meeting an in depth discourse uniting both worlds of high abstraction and direct tunefull melodies. Wolff adheres to the traditional concept of prelude, a one-idea work usually not developing much, Here only the longa mere 4 minute "Prelude #8 has three sections, simple melody accompanied by an incessant low register bass, And Pinkas here always is on top of the music mining the mysteries contained in Wolff intentionally ambiguous thorny, powerful at times music. If you are a scholar you won't find much to analyze and that perhaps makes this set to my mind the most important piano sonorities since Charles Ives. Wolff writes opaque music, yet somehow makes the gestures speak for themselves. The "First Prelude" for instance is an ongoing excursion into all registers of the piano and Pinkas here makes her accents, shapes the the unshaped, washes the unwashed of piano sound. Prelude # 2 a good following in contrast is much sparcer more transparent with open sixths and sevenths, two simple lines. Prelude # 3 utilizing "Hallelujah I'm a Bum" is a pastoral like idea with slower ongoing again melodious sounds, extremely lyrical yet you can't quite follow the lines, and that is the ultimate beauty of Wollf's music through the thicket of piano sounds seemingly going nowhere is a sublimeness you fall in love with. And you fall in love with Pinkas who has something to say in each, Even when she is required to whistle tones along with block chords arrpegiated once soft the next louder, there again is an ugly shaped mis-shaped beauty. All the songs are buried within these textures and sonorities, My favorite is the last "Acres of Clams" #11, simple chords in succession building like blocks or rocks up to the top, do not miss this if you have any pretension for what American music is suppose to be"