Let the sunshine on Morton Feldman

Nice riff going over on today's post about 'noises off' on recordings, and a comment from Brussels arrived just as I was enjoying Stephane Ginsburgh's new CD of Morton Feldman's For Bunita Marcus.

This excellent CD is notable for two reasons. First, Stephane Ginsburgh is one of the new generation of 'smart' Euro-pianists who play contemporary music with their heads as well as their hands - Daan Vandewalle and Jeroen van Veen are others. Check out Ginsburgh's website to see what I mean.

The second reason to comment on this new release are the sleeve notes. There aren't any. Except for these words - 'recorded by Daniel Léon at Igloo Studio, Brussels, April 1st, 2006, a sunny day'. Looking at that date I suspect a joke.

We're off to Belgium in February to hear lots of Morton Feldman and John Cage. Meanwhile, hear more 'noises off' here and here.
'Let the sunshine in' is, of course, from the musical Hair, which opened in New York and London forty years ago in 1968. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Essential minimal piano collection

June 2007 is rather early to be talking of CDs of the year, but it is going to take a lot to trump the treasure I have for you today. The Minimal Piano Collection is a survey of minimalist works for the solo piano. The breadth of the survey is shown by the composers represented - Philip Glass, John Adams, Simeon ten Holt, Arvo Pärt, Erik Satie, John Borstlap, Yann Tiersen, Michael Nyman, Jeroen van Veen, Wim Mertens, Tom Johnson, Jacob ter Veldhuis, Klaas de Vries, Carlos Micháns, Terry Riley and Friedrich Nietzsche - yes, you read that last name right. The joys are too numerous to list, but include John Adams' China Gates, Arvo Pärt's Variatonen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka, and a complete In C from Terry Riley, here is the complete track listing.

The pianist for this extraordinary 9 CD survey is the Dutchman Jeroen van Veen, who also contributes his own Minimal Preludes Books 1 and 2. The record label is the Dutch independent Brilliant Classics which has featured here several times before, including their 2 CD survey of John Cage's complete music for prepared piano.

If all that isn't enough good news, I paid just £21.99 for the 9 CD box in London last week. The recordings were all made in Barbara Church, Culemborg, in the Netherlands in October 2006, and the sound is excellent. The project is a tour de force for Jeroen van Veen, as well as appearing as pianist and composer he also engineered and produced the recordings himself through his own production company.

Not only is the Minimal Piano Collection essential in any CD collection, it is also one of the bargains of the decade.

For more minimalism try a different take on Terry Riley's In C.
Image credit - Plaster Surrogates 1982/84 by Allan McCollum. In the past I have recommended buying Brilliant Classics from Amazon reseller. That recommendation is now withdrawn, my last orders with them have been plagued by problems, and the customer support is non-existent. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk