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Der Bote

While visiting the town of Kalmar in 2001, I bought a CD entitled Alina, on the ECM label: a beautifully soporific disc including a couple of performances, extended by improvisation, of Arvo Pärt's short piano piece 'Für Alina'. Was there other piano music by Pärt out there? All I could find was another short work ('Variationen Zur Gesundung Von Arinuschka') which I obtained on a CD, ordered on-line, called Pourquoi Je Suis Si Sentimental. This disc, of 'Post-Avant-Garde Piano Music From The Ex-Soviet Union' turned out to be a real discovery - an eye-opener - my first introduction to the work of composers like Alexander Rabinovitch, Georgs Pelēcis & Valentin Silvestrov; all performed by the pianist Alexei Lubimov.

Looking for more music by these composers (and for more of Lubimov's playing), led me to Der Bote, another ECM release, one with a loosely elegaic theme. The album's title (and the title of the piece by Silvestrov that closes the record), translates as 'The Messenger'. It brings together compositions as old as C.P.E. Bach's mid-18th century 'Fantasie Für Klavier' in F-sharp minor and as new as the title tack (1996-97). In between are pieces by Glinka, Chopin & Liszt; Debussy & Bartók; John Cage & Tigran Mansurian.

For someone who'd only heard some of Cage's more abrasive & conceptual works (not enjoying them), his 'In a Landscape' was an exquisite surprise. I'd already encountered a different arrangement of Silvestrov's 'Der Bote'  as performed by Gidon Kremer et al, but I loved the one here too. To my taste, the album's theme was perhaps too loose, with some of the contents a tad too dissimilar to blend well together. I'm more likely to skip through my favourite half-dozen tracks than play through the whole disc. Even so, it's a very good record I won't readily part with.

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