Two new releases of piano music come at their subjects from quite different directions.

Composer Paul Paccione's (b. 1952) music for solo piano is featured on this new Music for Piano  release from Navona (Navona 6376).  The three pieces here were all composed between 2012-2019 for Jenny Perron who performs them here.

Tapestry Studies (2012) is a collection of nine etude-like pieces that explore different musical genres (habanera, invention, serenade, aubade--the morning equivalent of the evening serenade; and a march). It opens with a reflective, Satie-esque "First Things".  Paccione's musical language tends to be in a somewhat modal quality, though he does flirt with other whole tone and pentatonic scales.  The lyrical material tends to be in smaller cells that repeat in a minimalist way with the accompaniment also somewhat following in the same way.  The result are pieces that have a Post-Impressionist bent with a touch of Post-minimalist construction.  The final "Scribbling" picks the pace up a little bit to create a fast-paced technical exercise.

In a far more meditative vein, the second work on the album, Book of Hours (2019), moves the listener musically through the common practice of reflection and prayer that occurs at each hour of the day.  The eight canonical hours are each given their own separate time here to provide illumination, or at least an entry point, to specific events in the life of the Virgin Mary.  Paccione's somewhat impressionistic style works quite well in these pieces.

Unsent Letter (2015) is a sort of mini-encore honoring all those things we perhaps write out but for whatever neglect to send.

These are quite beautiful pieces that make for accessible and relaxed listening.  Perron's approach connects well to the musical aesthetics here.  It would be great to hear her interpretations of Debussy or Satie as these are distant cousins to Paccione's music as on display in this release.  A gorgeous album of music that is highly recommended.

At first glance, Pianist Hilary Demske's new album Journey for One: A Wintereisse Fantasy (Navona 6370) seems like it would be a straight-forward reading of Schubert's standard song cycle Wintereisse, Op 89 (1827).  The work is a setting of various poems by Wilhelm Muller.  The poetry informs Demske's interpretations of this music which has now been transformed, deconstructed, and/or redacted into a powerful new collection of solo piano pieces.  Schubert's romantic sensibilities are the framework for Demske's own departures that incorporate more dissonant harmonic approaches that can suddenly break into the music.  She also employs a variety of techniques that extend the sound of the piano (including aspects of strumming strings as one most striking early addition).  Percussion instruments are also incorporated from time to time as well.  The music thus takes on a semi-improvisatory quality that falls the whims of Demske's interpretation of the poetry as well as the source music as well.  Winterreise becomes a far more intense solo piano work as a result with the Romantic moments seeming to come crashing in to contemporary explosions of passion.  One thing this can do is give listeners pause to think about the poetry itself as an "introduction" to what follows.  The words now becoming inexpressible and only now viewed through Demske's lens.  One may want to have listened to Schubert's song cycle first with those texts in hand to gain a fuller appreciation of what she is attempting here in this new release which features stunning pianism.  

Pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico released a collection of interesting French Piano music earlier on the Navona label and now turns her attention to a survey of American music on Retro America (Navona 6361) available as a digital download and on streaming platforms.  

The music on this release covers a quite wide gamut of music moving from early avant-garde to jazz.  It is interesting to see Henry Cowell's (1897-1965) brief Six Ings (c. 1922) kick off this release.  It is an early example of the composer's experiments expanding sound.  In this work, Cowell takes a basic interval, the third, but somehow creates a quality that is more atonal.  The brevity of each movement (the whole piece takes about 9 minutes) is also in keeping with the short piano works of Webern and Schoenberg, and yet Cowell's rhythmic ideas are still well-rooted in American syncopations.  Next up is a movement from Frederick Rzewski's (1938-2021) North American Ballads in its solo version, Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues (1979) is another example of American avant-garde piano writing.  Rzewski liked to take American popular forms (blues, jazz, folk song, etc.) and then merge them into often dense and powerful textures with tone clusters being a common technique as well.  His work often shifts from simplicity to complexity and that can be experienced in this piece.  George Gershwin is the iconic American composer whose plethora of great songwriting made his wish to be respected as a serious concert composer always elusive.  Quilico shifts gears to present a suite of eight of the composer's greatest tunes rather than his Preludes.  Of course, one intriguing connection is that Gershwin took some private composition lessons with Cowell.  Thus by placing these brief little performances here on the album we have a rather nice overall balance to the opening piece.  It also provides even greater context for what the other composer's were familiar with and how that influence was integrated into their music.  The performances also seem to be informed by the composer's piano rolls and performance practice/style.

Composer Bill Westcott (b. 1948-), like William Bolcolm, has spent his life exploring jazz and blues forms of the early 20th Century.  His little suite features four movements that explore ragtime, blues and boogie woogie.  Four pieces by Meredith Monk (b. 1942) move us closer to some of the later developments in music that merges American jazz and concert music.  The great jazz pianist Art Tatum (1909-1956) is honored with performances of two jazz standards ("I'll Never Be the Same"; and "Don't Get Around Much Anymore").

The program of Retro Americana is a well-thought out one with music that all has one finger in the pie of early 20th-century musical forms.  From the serious to the more popular and accessible styles, Quilico's skill both as an interpreter of lyrical romantic writing, technical virtuosity, and a fine sense of jazz syncopation styles and performance make for a real treat for fans of American music.