Anthony Romaniuk - Bells - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

For his third solo album for Alpha, keyboard polyglot Anthony Romaniuk returns to the piano, exploring the seven modes derived from the major scale, the basis of ancient Greek music but nowadays endemic in folk, jazz, and beyond, each one containing a world of character and mood.Starting with John Adams' Phrygian Gates, Romaniuk devised a programme comprising music by Pärt, Ligeti, Radiohead, and Björk, with his own original compositions; arrangements of traditional Catalan and English/Scottish music; and improvisations. Continuing his search for a personal and original sound, Romaniuk uses two pianos, including a Klavins upright grand piano (from the collection of Nils Frahm) which, thanks to it's massive soundboard and four-metre-long bass strings, overwhelms the listener. The addition of various analogue and digital audio effects, together with innovative recording techniques, brings the listener into a unique sonic landscape, approaching that of a sound installation.

Anthony Romaniuk, multi-keyboardist, alchemist of pianos, or 'musical polyglot' as some people call him, presents his new album as follows 'I remember very clearly the occasions in my childhood when I would be at a concert and a magical feeling would overtake both the audience and the performers. It was as though everyone in the room was part of the performance and we were all experiencing a kind of collective bliss. As an adult I have tried to understand this phenomenon of communal concentration. It seems to me that a certain kind of musical work will naturally induce this state, works in which the rhythm is hypnotic, trance-like and ongoing. For this album, I wanted to find music embodying this quality, pieces in perpetual motion.' As if in some fascinating portrait gallery, we meet music by Kapsberger, Scarlatti, Purcell, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Ravel, Satie, Ligeti, Adams, and improvisations, played on a Fazioli concert piano, a Graf fortepiano from 1835, a Flemish muselar, a seventeenth-century harpsichord, a Yamaha CP80 electro-acoustic piano and a Prophet Rev2 synthesizer. Album Tracks 1. China Gates 2. Uppon la Mi Re 3. Prelude in a Major 4. Toccata in E minor 5. Piano Sonata No. 17 (Finale) 6. Etude No. 2 7. Toccata Arpeggiata 8. Etude No. 4 (Fanfares) 9. Perpetuum Mobile 10. A New Ground 11. Prelude (Vif) from Le Tombeau de Couperin 12. Pièces Froides (Danses de Travers) 13. Impromptu, D.899 No. 3 14. Faschingsschwank Aus Wien, Op. 26 (Intermezzo) 15. Prelude No. 2 16. Piano Sonata, K043 (I. ?=112) 17. Improvisations Upon 'Uppon la Mi Re' 18. Shadings 19. Parabola

Album Tracks 1. Gloom Cruise 2. Stumptown Summer Hearthrob 3. Dumb Angel 4. April 41st 5. All Connotations 6. Petunia, You're Home 7. Lighthouse 8. Tiger Lily 9. Winter Shy 10. Baby Blue Hammock