Inna Faliks, Reimagine: Beethoven and Ravel

 

The world of music has many facets of course and if you are like me the whole everloving Pop scene seems ever more vast and mysterious. I've pretty much given up on trying to assimilate the new flavors of the month there. I no longer feel compelled to hear all that as it comes out. There is too much great music coming out in Classical, New Music, Jazz, Avant, "World" and Avant Rock to appreciate. And the days when I made ends meet in a "Top 40" band are long gone, for better or worse.

So today another unexpected new one by the very talented pianist Inna Faliks. It is called Reimagine: Beethoven & Ravel (Navona NV6352). It is a great example of how a poetic musicianship and the freedom to rethink typical categories can make for very enjoyable and rewarding fare.

Essentially Ms. Faliks spans three centuries of piano music by paying homage to Beethoven and Ravel in interesting ways.  The program zeroes in on key compositions--Beethoven's "Bagatelles op. 126" and Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit. 

Ms. Faliks had an inspired idea--to commission living composers to write piano music dedicated to work out modern implications from the Bagatelles and Gaspard. The program features some nine world premieres in all. So to begin the opening sequence each Bagatelle gets Inna's lucid reading, followed in each case by a commissioned work that draws from that Bagatelle for a special New Music utterance. Stylistically the new works cover a good deal of ground, from harmonically stretched passages to rollickingly motor minimal to anything goes lyricisms. 

Each of the six op. 126 "Bagatelles" gets a worthy performance, followed in each case by a newly commissioned work that extends Beethoven to our present day world in interesting ways. And then we have three more works based on Ravel's Gaspar.  The names of the New Music composers are some quite familiar, some less so but all of the music leads to an essential impression of the place of the revered masters in the realm of the Modern. 

So we gladly explore the adventurous adoption of each classical work in the inaginative hands of, respectively, Richard Golub, Tamir Hendelman, Richard Danielpour, Ian Krouse, Mark Carlson, David Lefkowitz, Paola Prestini, Timo Andres and Billy Childs.

It is an album that wears very well as you listen repeatedly. It is a beautiful showcase for Inna Faliks' deeply rich musicality and a wonderful program that gets you to appreciate Beethoven and Ravel anew and what they contribute to our contemporary music world. Strongly recommended.

Inna Faliks, Reimagine: Beethoven and Ravel, Nine World Premieres

 

One of the ways the legacy of Classical composer titans lives on is through works written later as a homage to the master, so to speak, either in a general sense, or less often as deliberately modelling and extending a specific work. Pianist Inna Faliks gives us a volume of piano music devoted to later day Modern compositions each responding to an earlier piano work. The title gives us the plan--Reimagine: Beethoven and Ravel (Navona NV6352).

On this absorbing and deeply pianoforte-centered program we have some nine world premiere compositions specifically written for Ms. Faliks. 

For the Beethoven segment there are some six original works, each modelled after one of Beethoven's six Bagatelles, opus 126. Quite sensibly and fascinatingly, each new work is presented followed by the Beethoven Bagatelle in question. So we hear in this way pieces expressly responding to a Bagatelle, one apiece by Richard Danielpour,  Peter Golub, Tamir Hendelman, David Lefkowitz, Mark Carlson, and Ian Krause.

Following on the heels of this lovely coupling are three works responding to a separate movement each from Ravel's "Gaspard de la Nuit"--by Paola Prestini, Timo Andres and Billy Childs.

All the homages extend the legacy, bring it into a piano-centered present day and thereby give pianist Faliks a lengthy set of tone poems and active excitement that shows off her beautiful interpretive skills and brings us to the edge of our seats--or perhaps rather our piano benches! Inna Faliks gives us a substantial program that shows her spectacular touch and immaculate phrasing. The music remains in the mind even after just a few listens for its haunting luminescence.

This album should please a wide range of listeners, including of course those New Music enthusiasts who are up for a Modernity that responds to the Classical legacy as it steps forward into the future. Molto bravo!