Haruto Takahashi

Peter Garland (b. 1952) - The Birthday Party - Aki Takahashi (2017) {New World Records 80788-2 Digital Download}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download -> 180 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 154 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg+pdf) -> 5 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2017 New World Records | 80788-2
Classical / Modern Classical / Piano

On first hearing, the piano music of Peter Garland (b. 1952) creates a feeling of dislocation, then astonishment: It is so very different from the contemporary concert music we are familiar with. The composer's intent, his emotional directness is immediate - despite the unusual sound world and different sense of time that these pieces exhibit. Time itself appears to be suspended, and rhythm, melody and harmony are transformed into quite different entities in a universe parallel to our own - as accessible but not quite of it.

Written two years before his death in 1987, Morton Feldman's Piano and String Quartet is a shimmering, pristine musical event. Contrasting Aki Takahashi's widely-spaced piano arpeggios with Kronos Quartet's extended chords, Feldman allows lingering sounds from either the piano or the strings to haze over many of the piece's near-silences. Kronos plays their parts with tremulous fragility, often making pointedly clear the viola's musical valley between the leading violins and the trailing cello. By the time Feldman composed this piece, he was deeply committed to extended works—chamber pieces that could telescope motifs and worry their tonality so that it warbled between hauntingly atonal and familiarly tonal singing.

Amazon.com Review