Anna Gourari – Elusive Affinity (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:44 minutes | 837 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM New Series
In this imaginatively shaped and sensitively played album – her third for ECM – Russian pianist Anna Gourari explores musical connections and influences extending across the arts.
Three suites of contemporary music are heard here. Alfred Schnittke’s Five Aphorisms (1990) draw impulses from the poetry of his friend Joseph Brodsky. Rodion Shchedrin’s Diary – Seven Pieces (2002) dedicated to Gourari and inspired by her playing, reflects the life of a pianist and composer. Wolfgang Rihm’s sequence of tombeaux, Zwiesprache (1999) pays tribute to musicologists Alfred Schlee and Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, conductor Paul Sacher, and art sociologist Hermann Wiesler.
Threaded between the cycles are two Giya Kancheli miniatures drawn from theatre and movie music, as well as Arvo Pärt’s early tintinnabuli-style Variations for the Healing of Arinuschka (1977). Gourari’s investigation of artistic affinities is framed with Bach’s transcriptions of Venetian composers Antonio Vivaldi and Alessandro Marcello: “Anna Gourari makes these Bach slow movements, too, ours,” Paul Griffiths writes in the liner notes. “And the newer music is cherished and invigorated.”
Tracklist:
1. Anna Gourari – 2. Largo (03:48)
2. Anna Gourari – 1. Moderato assai (03:51)
3. Anna Gourari – 2. Allegretto (02:15)
4. Anna Gourari – 3. Lento (02:15)
5. Anna Gourari – 4. Senza tempo (02:34)
6. Anna Gourari – 5. Grave (03:04)
7. Anna Gourari – Piano Piece No. 15 (01:33)
8. Anna Gourari – 1. Sostenuto assai (00:49)
9. Anna Gourari – 2. L’istesso tempo (02:12)
10. Anna Gourari – 3. Allegretto moderato (in ritmo) (02:13)
11. Anna Gourari – 4. Allegro, ma non troppo (00:47)
12. Anna Gourari – 5. Lento, sempre poco rubato (03:38)
13. Anna Gourari – 6. Presto leggiero (01:08)
14. Anna Gourari – 7. Sostenuto alla campana (04:47)
15. Anna Gourari – Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka (05:38)
16. Anna Gourari – Alfred Schlee in memoriam (03:03)
17. Anna Gourari – Paul Sacher in memoriam (04:04)
18. Anna Gourari – Heinrich Klotz in memoriam (03:43)
19. Anna Gourari – Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht in memoriam (03:40)
20. Anna Gourari – Hermann Wiesler in memoriam (02:20)
21. Anna Gourari – Piano Piece No. 23 (01:24)
22. Anna Gourari – 2. Adagio (03:53)
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