Thea DerksOn the cutting edge: Delta Piano Trio plays Lera Auerbach https://theaderks.wordpress.com/2024/02/29/on-the-cutting-edge-delta-piano-trio-plays-lera-auerbach/ #DeltaPianoTrio, #GerardSpronk, #IreneEnzlin, #LeraAuerbach, #MilkingDarkness, #VeraKooper
Contemporary Classical - Thea DerksOn the cutting edge: Delta Piano Trio plays Lera Auerbach
Lera Auerbach (b. 1973, Chelyabinsk) grew up under Soviet dictatorship, but decided to trade it for the free West during a concert tour of America in 1991; a few months later, the Soviet Union fell apart. Auerbach continued to live in New York, building an increasingly successful career from there.
She is by no means unknown in The Netherlands either, thanks in part to the Friday Evening Concert series of the Dutch broadcasting union and the Netherlands Chamber Choir. Last October her fiftieth birthday was celebrated in The Hague. On that occasion, the Delta Piano Trio released a CD entirely dedicated to her music. The title Milking Darkness is derived from the eponymous piece for solo piano.
Previously, the trio presented her first two Piano Trios on a widely acclaimed album; now they have added the numbers three and four. Auerbach was so impressed with the musicians’ interpretation of her music that she dedicated her Piano Trio No. 3 to them. Not surprising, because whether it is Lonely Suite – Ballet for a Lonely Violinist for solo violin, Milking Darkness for solo piano or the two trios, the musicians play as if their lives depended on it.
For this release, violinist Gerard Spronk, cellist Irene Enzlin and pianist Vera Kooper worked closely with the composer, whose music is, in their words, ‘both raw and human’. During the recordings, moreover, they found that Auerbach ‘never compromises on what she wants to express, so that everything that is in the music is fully realized’.
Both in her fastidiousness and in her music, Auerbach shows herself to be a kindred spirit of Galina Ustvolskaya. Like her former compatriot, she switches effortlessly between extremes of dynamics and lyricism. In Milking Darkness, pianist Vera Kooper now plays loud, ferociously pounding chords in the low registers, then strings sweet garlands of notes in the higher regions.
We recognize this tendency in Piano Trio No. 3, in which obsessively swarming lines from the strings seem to arm wrestle with ferocious clusters from the piano. The one-movement Piano Trio No. 4 is decidedly dark in tone, with desperate pizzicati and glissandi from the strings that attempt to escape from the furiously hammered-out death drive of the piano.
Unlike Ustvolskaya, Auerbach does have some sense of humour. For example, in Piano Trio No. 4, where halfway through a claustrophobic passage the music suddenly turns into a jolly dance. In Three Dances in the Old Style for violin and cello, classic-sounding, innocent melodies and rhythms are ‘gnawed at’ by distorted sounds and disruptive glissandi. Thus, Auberbach pokes fun at our ingrained expectations.
The Delta Piano Trio plays at the cutting edge and the recording technique is outstanding. This release is definitely Grammy-worthy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Saldcyf5YdI&ab_channel=DeltaPianoTrio-Topic
#DeltaPianoTrio #GerardSpronk #IreneEnzlin #LeraAuerbach #MilkingDarkness #VeraKooper
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