Snorri Hallgrímsson * Glowworm
Two ‘modern classical’ album that take melancholy to a different level: ‘Landbrot I’ by Snorri Hallgrímsson and ‘Midnight Intervals’ by Glowworm (Kevin Scott Davis).
Two ‘modern classical’ album that take melancholy to a different level: ‘Landbrot I’ by Snorri Hallgrímsson and ‘Midnight Intervals’ by Glowworm (Kevin Scott Davis).
Throughout musical history, the pure and delicate sound of the piano has never really been out of style.
But still, recent years have seen a revival of (more or less) improvised piano music, most of them (more or less) introvert and (somewhat) melancholic in style. Here’s a selection of some of them that I thoroughly enjoyed recently:
BRUNO SANFILIPPO – PIANO TEXTURES 3
The title leaves no room for surprises. This album is all about piano, and it’s #3 in a series. (Those that want all of them may want to check out the box set including all three).
Bruno Sanfilippo, originally from Buenos Aires, but now living in Barcelona, is not exactly a newcomer in this musical area: he graduated the conservatory of Buenos Aires with a degree in musical composition (piano). This third part of Piano Textures follows the first two releases with the same title (2007/2009), but together these three releases are just a small part of his discography.
Next to Johann Johannsson and Ólafur Arnalds, Max Richter is one of the pioneers of the ‘post-classical’ genre, a mixture of classical music, electronic sounds and rock music influences.
Mostly the compositions in this genre are suble and not too complex, often slightly (ore not so slightly) melancholic – the kind of music that feels and sounds like it’s written to be a (movie) soundtrack.
So it should not be a surprise that Richter’s Infra was originally written as a score for Wayne McGregor’s ballet as performed by the Royal Ballet.