Herbert Henck Piano Music

Liner Notes
Viewed collectively, Herbert Henck's recordings for ECM add up to a portrait gallery of some of the most fiercely independent spirits in 20th century music. In this series of recordings, Henck has illuminated composers whose work is outside all the "schools". After Mompou, Mosolov, Barraqué, and Hans Otte, the resourceful German pianist now turns his attention to two maverick Americans - George Antheil and Conlon Nancarrow.

Alexander Mosolov (1900-1973), too, uses his own distinctive scheme of tonal organisation, different from Roslavets, and different from the Vienna School as well. His sonatas are technically very complex and difficult, and symphonically oriented, exploiting the full resources of the modern instrument. Herbert Henck puts this difficult material across in a beautiful, spirited performance and finds a lot of lyricism behind an often forbidding surface. The recording and production are up to the highest possible standards, as with all of ECM's releases, which are unsurpassed.

Alexander Mosolov (1900-1973), too, uses his own distinctive scheme of tonal organisation, different from Roslavets, and different from the Vienna School as well. His sonatas are technically very complex and difficult, and symphonically oriented, exploiting the full resources of the modern instrument. Herbert Henck puts this difficult material across in a beautiful, spirited performance and finds a lot of lyricism behind an often forbidding surface. The recording and production are up to the highest possible standards, as with all of ECM's releases, which are unsurpassed.

John Cage: Early Piano Music comes from Herbert Henck, an experienced hand with the work of Cage, having previously recorded Music for Piano, Music of Changes, and Sonatas and Interludes in addition to a mighty swath of first-tier twentieth-century literature for piano for various labels, most notably Wergo and ECM New Series. These are early works for standard, not prepared, piano, and some of these pieces will be as familiar to dyed-in-the-wool Cageans as "Happy Birthday." This puts the pressure on Henck to excel, and he does so spectacularly well here. The disc includes the two sets entitled Two Pieces for Piano, the piano version of The Seasons, Metamorphosis, In a Landscape, Ophelia, and the fragmentary Quest. The pieces date from 1935 to 1948, the same range covered by pianist Jeanne Kirstein in her pioneering 1967 survey of Cage's piano music for CBS Masterworks.

Tamara Anna Cislowska is one of the best known and awarded Australian pianists of her generation. She has performed as a soloist across five continents and is renowned for her wide-ranging repertoire and exciting performances. In addition to spanning 300 years of music from Scarlatti to Sculthorpe, Tamara thrills audiences with her own transcriptions and arrangements of popular melodies. This release consists of a collection of dramatic, ghostly and macabre 19th century solo piano works.