Michael Price: Diary Reworks
1631 Recordings

VA: Piano Cloud Series - Volume Four
1631 Recordings

I'll confess I missed Michael Price's Diary upon its initial release, first as tracks on the Emmy award-winning composer's Soundcloud page in 2016 and then a year later in an album form as a collection of solo piano improvisations on 1631 Recordings. That oversight was obviously my loss, if the material now presented on Diary Reworks is a reliable indicator of the original's quality. While it's not necessarily the primary aim of a remix project, arousing the listener's desire to revisit the material on which the interpretations are based is certainly one of them, and said desire definitely builds as the communal project plays out.

True to its title, the original set of improvisations was generated over a six-week period, with Price, whose contributions to major films (music editor for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Love Actually, Children of Men) and the critically acclaimed BBC series Sherlock (which he scores with David Arnold) have brought him deserved recognition, recording one per day in a single take. His material certainly warrants the attention given it by the artists who contributed to the release, many of who are established figures in their own right. On any project quality is assured when the participants include Akira Kosemura, Sophie Hutchings, Library Tapes, Julia Kent, and Balmorhea co-leader Michael A. Muller, but the pieces by Dmitry Evgrafov, Madeleine Cocolas, and Marco Caricola hold up equally well.

Speckled with electronic dust and crackle, Muller's ethereal rework of “Ink On Paper” evokes the magical feeling a child might have seeing a fireworks display at a small-town summer exhibition for the first time. Cello is naturally front and center in Kent's lulling rendering of “True Is,” and while strings prominently figure into Kosemura's meditative “To Begin,” they're the sole element presented in Caricola's intensely expressive makeover of “A Birthday.”

A few treatments hew to the solo piano style of Price's originals, among them David Wenngren's pretty Library Tapes version of “When Rivers Run I See” and Hutchings' exquisite handling of the gently lilting “I Will, For You.” Rather more grandiose by comparison, the new version of “Ink On Paper” is fleshed out by Evgrafov with expansive synthesizer patterns and string textures, while Cocolas contributes one of the set's more beautiful versions in her stirring “Song for A” makeover. Hushed vocal accents and radiant synthesizer treatments deepen the material's hymnal quality and give it a sparkle and gleam that are positively celestial.

Though other instruments appear on 1631 Recordings releases, piano is, of course, the nucleus around which the others constellate, as evidenced by the label's ongoing Piano Cloud Series. The fourth volume is an especially appealing proposition, not only because it presents no less than eighteen solo piano pieces but because contributions from Eluvium and Balmorhea appear alongside ones by Hior Chronik, Tim Linghaus, and others. Familiar figures such as Hutchings and Kosemura participate, but the compilation also provides a forum for less established names. Each piece differentiates itself from the others, yet all are united in emphasizing melody, tonal harmony, and classical refinement. And while eighteen selections is a lot, the release doesn't overstay its welcome when only two push past the four-minute mark.

Contrasts in mood make for a varying set, too, with some opting for prettiness (Oskar Schuster's “Damascus (Solo Piano),” Clem Leek's “Rogers Park”), some melancholy (The Album Leaf's “Maryam,” Levi Patel's “With Wings Falling (Solo Piano)”), and some both (Benjamin Gustafsson's “Afraid To Love Again”). Over-complexity is also downplayed, resulting in settings that a still-developing piano student could conceivably tackle. Still, as simple in construction as Alice Baldwin's “Unverzagt” is, it requires immense sensitivity to realize its quiet beauty and perform it as movingly as Baldwin does here. Just as she does on the Price release, Hutchings distinguishes herself on this recording, too, her “Whisper to Closeness” an elegant exercise in wistful reflection, while, not surprisingly, Matthew Cooper does the same with his Eluvium contribution “Underwater Dream (Mise En Scène),” one of the collection's most entrancing and, yes, dream-like pieces.

Certainly one of the major selling-points for the release is the inclusion of Balmorhea's “The Most Fleeting” for the simple fact that a solo piano piece by the group is a rarity; that this hushed thing of beauty is also one of the release's most affecting realizations doesn't hurt either. Individual settings aside, probably no instrument has proven to be more resourceful than the piano, with this latest chapter in the Piano Cloud Series reminding us that its capacity for generating new melodies is as inexhaustible as ever.

August 2018