The Blue Piano CD II

The Advantage Of Writing Music
 

Collaborating with classical musicians had always appealed to me. Thus several collaborations came about with classical pianists, the first time in 1981 with the Viennese pianist Hans Kann (1927-2005), later with Paul Gulda, Johann Gröbner, the Swiss classical icon Oliver Schnyder or with the Slovaks Ladislav Fančovič or František Jánoška, both also excellent jazz pianists. Last year I met the Turkish-Azerbaijani pianist Sabina Hasanova by chance, who inspired and almost prompted me, to write more music for solo piano. I heeded her advice! I am very happy to welcome the two ladies – the second is Soley Blümel – on this album. And after I had "critically" listened to their recordings with my eyes (sic!), I then decided to drop my piece.

 

The first three-movement piece, Playing Around Lovely with A Fragment of W.A.M., is the fragment KV 386, which Mozart later discarded in favour of the Piano Concerto in A Major/KV 414. I have mirrored this original – apart from minor rhythmic changes – only in minor/major. Everything in major is transferred to minor and vice versa. Then, in the spirit of a "modern Mozart", I added a slow second and a fast third movement. The whole piece was premiered in 2005 at the Vienna Konzerthaus as a belated contribution to the Mozart Year by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra with Paul Gulda at the piano.

A Personal View Of The 4th Movement Of Liszt's Dante Symphony was commissioned by the Viennese publisher Doblinger on the occasion of the Liszt Year 2011.

I had already set the Canticle of the Sun by Francis of Assisi to music in 2007 for the Vienna Art Orchestra (VAO 2007 –"3"), which was followed in 2009 by a chamber music version for cello and piano (rüegg – chamber music tenminusone) and finally by the present solo version commissioned by Sabina Hasanova.

Variations on an ostinato by Erik Satie are available (played by me) on the album Solitude Diaries from 2020. Here is Sabina's interpretation.

 

Kopf hoch, Sophiechen is a furiously fast piece in 3/4, an extension of the song that I commissioned by George Tabori in 1988 for the premiere of the play Frauen . Krieg . Lustspiel by Thomas Brasch. On the album Art & Fun (Vienna Art Orchestra, 2002) I took up the theme again and here, in a third "attempt", comes the ultimate (pianistically

Five Little Figures Out Of My Dreams for Soley Blümel is the most recent composition from 2021, in which all her favourite animals have each been given a movement. But beware! There is nothing sweet and girly about this piece. It is – except for the third movement in the middle – tough and rather "brutal". But the young lady resolves this apparent contradiction perfectly with incredible power and musical intelligence – on a high technical level.