Zbigniew PREISNER
10 Easy Pieces for Piano
Leszek Mozdzer
EMI Classics CDC5
56971 2 7 [53:33]
Crotchet
Amazon
UK
Amazon
USA
With his second album of music not written for the cinema, Zbigniew Preisner
goes to the opposite extreme of his Requiem for my Friend, his full-scale
requiem written in memory of the film director Krzysztof Kieslowski. This
time Preisner utilises just a single instrument and keeps even the longest
selection on the album down to just over eight minutes. Indeed, all ten pieces
total 53:33.
This is a thoughtfully designed package, the simple beach artwork running
through the cover and booklet, the ten footprints in the sand a modestly
understated joke on the nature of the music itself. Like footprints, or art
drawn on the shoreline, there is both a transient beauty and a lightweight
disposability about these 10 Easy Pieces for Piano. Preisner being
primarily a film composer, we should not forget possible associations with
the Jack Nicholson movie, Five Easy Pieces (1970) (music by Bach,
Chopin and Mozart), nor with Picasso Summer (1969), the film adapted
from a Ray Bradbury story - Bradbury himself co-wrote the screenplay as Douglas
Spaulding) - and which features a memorable jazz-piano score by Michel Legrand
and a considerable amount of time spent on the beach. And whilst playing
the influence game one can trace back to the previous year and to the Legrand
scored The Thomas Crown Affair - and the line (lyrics by Alan and
Marilyn Bergman) in Windmills of Your Mind 'Lovers walk along a shore
and leave their footprints in the sand…'
In the well appointed booklet Preisner himself notes the considerable influence
Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert double jazz set (ECM 1975) has upon
him, and indeed, the Jarrett influence is clear. Tracks such as 'To See More'
sounding on a casual listen as if they come straight off the Köln set,
though the new recording has far better production values and we do not have
to endure Mozdzner groaning as we do Jarrett. Mozdner is actually the ideal
performer for this music. He has worked on Preisner's film scores since
Damage (1992), as well as recording numerous jazz albums: a set of
Chopin Impressions fuse 19th Century tradition with
20th century jazz flavourings (and feature a similarly sandy coloured
cover as 10 Easy Pieces.) He has a light touch, great fluency and
brings an atmospheric romance to pieces which are often as much mood as
substance.
Following the death of Krzysztof Kieslowski the question Preisner asks is
"whether those of us who are left have… enough strength to say, 'Now
it is our time. Now look at us.' Do we have enough talent…" Well, the
music is melodically attractive and will doubtless find favour as dinner-party
music, making regular appearances on Classic FM. There is nothing here to
win the more sober end of the classical market, and there is certainly not
the substance or lasting impact of the Requiem or the best of the
film scores, such as The Double Life of Veronique, and Three Colours
Blue . That said, it is an atmospheric, innocent, open-hearted collection
which should find a welcome in the collections of fans of light piano music,
jazz piano and Preisner's film music.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
