This is, IMO, a major, serious, important contribution to “traditional” piano music. What I mean by traditional is that it’s using techniques which are basically those found in Liszt and Beethoven and Debussy - the piano player does not wear maracas on his wrists or gloves on his hand or sing, he doesn’t play with his elbows or stroke the insides of the instrument, there’s no electronics.
Listening to the whole thing over the past few weeks it’s clear to me that expressively this is a match for the greatest cycles of piano music.
But there’s a huge problem which, I think, is preventing its acknowledgement for the work of genius it is. You can only hear it through Ian Pace’s performance with sound which is, in my opinion, poor. Poor dynamic range, poor capture of timbre and attack - poor in all the things which matter for piano. The sound is
dead.
