Jonathan Harvey – Works for Piano; Works for Flute and Piano

Reading around about the first track of this compilation, “Nataraja” (= Lord of the Dance, better known as Shiva, the Hindu God of destruction and regeneration), I was baffled to find a reviewer calling the composition “an example of Harvey’s interest in occultism”.
A billion hindus might return the compliment and call Jesus a descendant of Chaldean astrologers, I daresay. Never mind, reviewers make mistakes too, although this is a rather stupid one. Even the staunchest attheists among scholars make a slight distinction between religion and occultism.

Had he persevered in his confusing use of definitions, the same reviewer could have written the term “messianic” where he meant to say “Messiaenic”; fortunately he avoided using Olivier’s family name attributively. But he was right when he pointed to Harvey’s indebtedness to the French composer. That becomes clear in almost every track on this compilation. In “Nataraja” , the listener is welcomed by a happy twittering of birds…however, with Shiva as the subject of the composition, nobody will be surprised to hear a darkish, threatening undertone as well.

You will find “Tombeau de Messiaen” again on this album. I haven’t decided yet which I prefer – this one, or the version on my earlier upload (Trio Fibonacci). I’d say the latter is spicier, whereas here the tone may be a bit warmer.

Which leaves me to say the overall performance of Florian Hoelscher and Pirmin Grehl is admirable indeed!

01. Nataraja (flute & piano) [0:11:05.38]
02. Run Before Lightning (flute & piano) [0:07:37.34]
03. Tombeau de Messiaen (piano & digital audio tape) [0:08:42.65]
04. Vers (piano) [0:02:48.17]
05. ff (piano) [0:02:18.36]
06. Hommage to Cage, a Chopin (und Ligeti ist auch dabei)
(piano & digital audio tape) [0:01:41.40]
07. Haiku (piano) [0:00:24.23]

Four Images after Yeats (piano)
08. I [0:00:52.21]
09. II [0:02:32.00]
10. III [0:02:44.49]
11. IV [0:17:21.30]

Performers:

Florian Hoelscher – piano
Pirmin Grehl - flute