Zabaleta 2001

What challenges does a composer of the 21st century face when tackling the piano? One could think that its musical possibilities have almost been depleted: on the one hand, György Ligeti’s Etudes (1985–2001) probably stand as the fin-de-siècle pianistic milestone; on the other hand, following in a way Henry Cowell’s pioneering experiments on the piano, both John Cage’s preparations and Helmut Lachenmann’s extended techniques epitomize a deconstruction of the piano’s normalized uses. Some of their followers have however overexploited these novel paths, paradoxically rendering several radical achievements cliché. Aesthetic apriorisms still prevail and composers are often urged to take ideological sides, but Ramon Lazkano belongs to those who, since the nineties, have deftly navigated between tradition and experimentation.