MEHLDAU BRAD/APRES FAURE

Descripción

Mehldau performs four preludes from a thirty-seven-year span of Gabriel Faurs career as well as a reduction of an excerpt from the Adagio movement of his Piano Quartet in G Minor. Here Mehldaus four compositions that Faur inspired are presented in a group sandwiched between two sections featuring the French composers works. Discussing the Aprs Faur album in his note Mehldau says: If the sublime foreshadows our mortality this music might communicate the austerity of death-Faurs as it approached him but also the apprehension of our own. We find a kinship with the composer finally in the form of a question that he tossed off into the future to us. I have composed four pieces to accompany Faurs music here to share the way I have engaged with Faurs question with you the listener.This format is similar to my After Bach project he continues. The connections are less overt but Faurs harmonic imprint is on all four. There is also a textural influence in terms of how he presented his musical material pianistically-he exploited the instruments sonority masterfully as an expressive means. So for example in my first Prelude melody is welded to a continuous arpeggiation both part of it and hovering above it in my Nocturne it is possible to hear the harkening chordal approach in the opening of Faurs No. 12.