Lera Auerbach, just 30, has already achieved success as a pianist,
composer (more than 60 opus numbers to date), novelist and poet. Born in
the Soviet Union, she trained mainly in the US and in Germany. This, the first commercial CD of her music, benefits from powerful, strongly
committed performances, and excellent recording – Auerbach’s style
involves vivid, sometimes aggressive exploitation of the piano’s bass
register, and such passages come across with wonderful force and
clarity.
For the sequence of 24 keys, she adopts the same order
as Chopin did for his Preludes (and Pierre Rode in his 24 violin
Caprices). But the major and minor keys mean something rather different
to Auerbach. Sometimes the key is only tenuously suggested (F sharp
major); sometimes we’re half-way through the piece before it’s
established (C major). On other occasions the tonal centre may be clear
but the mode less so (B major). Or we come across naïve,
straight-forward tonal material, subverted by unusual timbre or an
‘alien’ harmonic context (G major).
Auerbach’s music is
eclectic, in places referential (F sharp minor, with its echoes of
Mussorgsky and the Mozart K488 Concerto), but put together with
tremendous passion and imagination. And if some devices tend to recur
over and over again (wide separation of the pianist’s hands, thumping
repeated bass notes, pieces that begin with great energy which then runs
out to create a sense of emptiness), the way she welds so many
memorable moments into a convincing extended sequence shows a real
composer at work. We’re likely to hear a lot more of her. (Duncan Druce / Gramophone)
Comentarios
Publicar un comentario