Vorleben: Piano Pieces

Album Review

While it is an unlikely pairing in terms of style, it isn't an error to say that it was Keith Jarrett's now legendary Koln Concert and subsequent solo piano recitals that made albums like Dustin O'Halloran's Vorleben possible. While Jarrett's pieces were improvisations and these are composed pieces — most of them appeared on his first two studio recordings of piano solos — there are similarities in terms of presentation. Jarrett chose his location and piano carefully as did O'Halloran here. The acoustics in Grunewald Church and its piano are as much a part of this recital as the pianist's technique in performance. O'Halloran is from the new emerging school of composers that includes Max Richter and Nils Frahm, who create intimate atmospheres where emotion, space, lyric harmony, and restraint are part and parcel of the compositional framework. O'Halloran is an accomplished pianist; his technical acumen is evident from the first bars of the previously unreleased "Opus 54," with its traces of Debussy and the more skeletal meditations of Scriabin. The sound of the piano — its pedals and hammers clearly evident on much of this — adds heft to the feeling of intimacy on this recording. Always meditative — though far from minimal — emotions pour from the pianist; they evoke sorrow (he learned his grandmother had passed away moments before he took to the stage), romanticism, and ethereal, atmospheric euphoria (the beautiful sense of repetition in "Opus 28"). The gentility of Satie's Gnossienes is evoked in "Opus 17." In addition, O'Halloran has become an in-demand film composer, and this work is illustrated best in "Prelude N. 3." Part of what makes the listening experience of this recording powerful in its deliberate, elegant unfolding, is that the recital holds no pauses between its selections, and audience applause is held until the very end of the disc. The pieces' immediacy is pronounced and gently assertive. Vorleben (a German word that translates as "past" or "past life" depending on its usage) provides an excellent introduction to the solo work of O'Halloran, as it's a 32-minute best-of with some new pieces included. It adds exponentially to the flavor in the studio solo records emotionally, without ever becoming maudlin or manipulative.