Irene Schweizer - First Choice Piano Solo KKL Luzern (2006) torrent

Irène Schweizer
First Choice. Piano Solo KKL Luzern
Intakt CD 108
http://www.intaktrec.ch/108-a.htm

01 - First Choice (19.18)
02 - Into the Hall of Fame (09.49)
03 - The Ballad of the Sad Café (03.57)
04 - Scratching at the KKL (05.51)
05 - The Loneliness of the Long Distance Piano Player (04.49)
06 - Oska T. (03.12)
07 - Jungle Beats II (03.22)

* Irène Schweizer: piano

All compositions by Irène Schweizer (SUISA) except “Oska T.” by Thelonious Monk
Recorded October 8, 2005 at Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern, KKL Luzern

About Irène Schweizer:
http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mschweiz.html

KKL Luzern | Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern:
http://www.kkl-luzern.ch/navigation/top_nav_items/start.htm

KKL Luzern - Konzertsaal:
http://www.kkl-luzern.ch/navigation/top_nav_items/culture/Sitzplaene/konzertsaal/default.htm

Review
~~~~~~
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=23360
By Nic Jones

Comparison between the opening bars of the lengthy title track on First Choice
and Cecil Taylor\'s solo work reveals interesting details. Where Taylor\'s more
reflective passages tend often to preview bombast and iconoclasm writ large,
Irene Schweizer\'s approach to the piano seems more reflective—more prone to
rumination on an idea or a fragment of an idea—and it makes for music that holds
the attention more by stealth than by sheer impact. Over the course of these
nineteen minutes, there isn\'t a second that\'s wasted.

There might be no little irony in a title like \"Into The Hall Of Fame,\" but
Schweizer seems to adopt a more expansive approach here. The results reveal her
idiosyncratic way with a phrase and the fact that her instrumental voice, having
spent decades in gestation, is entirely her own.

Irony might not have been too far from her thoughts with \"Scratching At The
KKL,\" either. It\'s the only time she goes under the piano lid, an act which in
itself reveals just how deep her intuitive grasp of dynamics can be; her
manipulation of strings is deft, and the low volume of the sounds she produces
could well serve as a musical example of Samuel Beckett\'s declared wish \"to
leave a stain upon the silence.\"

Reference has to be made to the exceptional fidelity of this recording, which
indeed seems to be a growing characteristic of Intakt releases. This is arguably
most apparent here on \"The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Piano Player,\" where
the variations of Schweizer\'s touch are abundantly apparent.

A real mark of this disc is the degree of difference between the surface of the
music and what lies beneath it. With that in mind, it can almost serve as
background in the sense of being complementary to some activity other than
listening itself—but deeper listening reveals the work of a fierce musical
intelligence, however, and is by far the preferable alternative.