The Musical Narratives of Jan Krzywicki’s Alchemy
Albany’s release of recent works by Jan Krzywicki captures the unique and coherent voice of this Philadelphia composer at his best. The CD, titled Alchemy, highlights Krzywicki’s expressive and intuitive writing for woodwinds, the wall of sounds he pulls out of the piano, and an impressive blend of soprano voice, string trio, and guitar. Krzywicki’s highly individual style and musical language craft beautiful musical narratives out of mostly dissonant material that have a strong impact on the surface and leave you contemplating their implications.
I first became attracted to Krzywicki’s music through learning and performing his piece Fable for baritone saxophone and piano. I was particularly taken with the narrative structure of Fable: the way the music drew itself out of a simple beginning and built through numerous twists in the story, finally reaching a conclusion that was both dramatic and takes time to mentally digest. As a performer, I was impressed and challenged with Krzywicki’s meticulous attention to expressive detail, especially articulations, including ones that really gave the music an aggressive punch. The range of sounds demanded of the baritone saxophone, starting from nothing and going to the brink, made it one of those pieces I really had to put everything into emotionally and technically.
Jan Krzywicki
Last week, 
Hippos Epos is the latest release by Italian percussionist Sebastiano de Gennaro, on Trovarobato’s Parade label. Of the six pieces contained on the disc, three are original compositions for percussion and electronics (Donald Fauntleroy Duck, Electric Poneis, Musica per Aristofane), two are highly imaginative reinterpretations of major works from the cannon (Kindersinfonie, and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 2), and one is a faithful interpretation of a minimalist landmark (Steve Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood). It seems highly appropriate at this point to issue a bit of a spoiler alert for any interested reader, as the six titles represented on Hippos Epos are heavily steeped in irony, sarcasm, and humor.
The free improvisation group AMM have, remarkably, been active since 1965, and founder-member Eddie Prévost has been a constant presence. Cornelius Cardew was a long-standing member, and occasional collaborators include Christian Wolff and Evan Parker. Ornette Coleman was apparently asked to leave.
On his new album from Cantaloupe Music, this was written by hand, David Lang treats the piano alternately as a eulogizer and as a medium to commune with the departed. Pianist Andrew Zolinsky’s technique is well suited to tastefully render these finely wrought improvisatory pieces, to sound out the meditative character of Lang’s postminimalism. The range of piano articulation presented here stretches from use of the instrument as pitched percussion all the way to liquid, dulcet burbles. Piano music in the contemporary classical world often embraces jazz tropes, or world music idioms, or past stylistic genres. Lang’s piano voice sometimes recalls the phase music of Reich but is for the most part quite original in its complete metrical flexibility (or complete lack of meter in some cases, it seems), and in the way it exhaustively explores all the possibilities of a spare musical form. The tracks here are all character pieces in my opinion. There are no grand statements; on the contrary, the prevailing voice is one of personal introspection, without a hint of sentimentality.
