Intégrale de la musique pour piano

Description

The combined works of Gurdjieff and Hartmann had left me with memories of the already old records by Alaim Kremski (Valois) and Keith Jarrett (ECM). An entirely internal, haunting, and meditative listening experience, sometimes austere. The Dutch pianist Jeroen Van Veen, a champion of minimalist music to which he has dedicated a remarkable body of work (Brilliant Classics), logically extends his preferred repertoire by drawing from the sources, thus connecting Gurdjieff and Hartmann to the pioneers of minimalism while also evoking Bartok and Martinu in his presentation for their folkloric and popular components. Drawing inspiration from the diverse Eastern folklore (Persian, Turkish, Greek, Arab, Afghan, Kurdish, Tibetan), these few series of melodies that the creators refer to as hymns or rituals composed in the 1920s constitute a corpus that is both documentary and imaginary, in line with similar works by Bartok. A keen ear is required to distinguish each region through these complex rhythms and subtle harmonic variations, and the succession of these brief and concentrated pieces quickly leads to a form of floating listening conducive to meditation. With his experience in this type of repertoire, Jeroen van Veen's approach lies between the jazzy exploration that Jarrett undertook (who only selected a few pieces) and the Jansenist restraint of Kremski. The entirety of the four volumes is also noteworthy for its comprehensiveness.