Elegies And Visions

Description

This album presents some of the most profound and spiritually significant works I've encountered in piano music written over the past thirty years. As a performer, I've developed a strong personal connection to each of these works, despite their astonishing diversity of language and compositional style--a hallmark of our time. Ellen Harrison's enchanting suite, The Time Between (2020), conveys a wide range of subtle emotions with incredible timbral and psychological sophistication; with an almost cinematic feel, its titles synesthetically evoke nuances of color and fleeting sensations of distance, nostalgia, and melancholy. Jonathan Cziner's Elegy (2014) is a two-page work of astonishing brevity, miraculously building from a transparent and intimate lament to a solemn, bell-like conclusion of universal significance. Thomas Schwan's Notturno (2025), the beating heart of this album, a\uFB03rms a cosmic understanding of the soul's suffering, faith, fragility, passion, tragedy, contemplation, and turmoil. Edward Green's On Deeper Reflection (2024) is a miniature of poignant beauty, rigorous in its contrapuntal writing and imbued with profound philosophical meaning. The album's grand finale is Ralf Gawlick's Mysterium doloris quintae (1997), a timeless and heartfelt depiction of existence as a realm of universally shared suffering, where mercy and grace timidly yet powerfully find their way, offering salvation and comfort in the face of evil.