Customer Reviews

Janácek: Piano Works

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Alain Planès interpretation of the music of composer Léo Janacek (1854-1928) is extraordinary as represented on Oeuvres Pour Piano. The liner notes to this recording state: "It was around the turn of the last century, at the age of about fifty, Janacek (b. 1854) found his own original, inimitable style and thus, with Debussy, Satie, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and others took part in the creation of what we call modern music." The pieces presented here are 1905 Sonata - Mort/Death; Sur un sentier Recouvert/On An Overgrown Path; Dans Les Brumes/In the Mists; and Souvenir/Memory. This is brooding, moody, haunting, unsettling music for late nights and to get you through difficult times. Alain Planès plays beautiful, expressively. The music is wonderfully recorded and presented on the Harmonia Mundi label.

Of all the funeral music played by radio stations after the 9/11 disaster, this disc stands out as the most appropriate. Planes' interpretation admirably captures the pain and anger of that time, and lets the music provide its own consolation. I call this my "conflict" music, and play it whenever I have disharmony in my life.