Tony McManus - Mysterious Boundaries - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Tony Ann brings together all his exploration of astrological signs in one album, 360°. Each song functions as a meditation on a different horoscope, encompassing 12 keys at different meters and tempos. It plunges listeners into a living and breathing musical ecosystem punctuated by bliss and catharsis. He employs the full range of the piano to evoke the singularity of these respective astrological signs. The entire suite revolves around his virtuosic chops, melodic empathy, and electrifying energy.

Aequora?aequor aequoris neuter noun?[AEQUUS] a smooth or level surface, expanse, surface; a level stretch of ground, plain; inmensumne noctis aequor confecimus? have we made it across the vast plain of night? the surface of the sea especially as considered as calm and flat, a part of the sea; per aperta volans aequora soaring over open sea; the waters of a river, lake, sea; tibi rident aequari ponti the waters of the sea laugh up at you. Gajic and Carrettin have performed under the moniker InchMystery SonataInch when performing new work and non-classical music styles. AEQUORA is the first album recorded under the name Mystery Sonata and reflects the duo's commitment to performing contemporary music alongside their work with ancient music, historical instruments, improvisation, and electric instrument collaborations with contemporary and aerial dance.

Tae-Hyung Kim's Echoes in the Mists is a poetic journey through a century of piano music, tracing a line from early Romanticism to early modernism. The album opens with Franz Liszt's masterful transcriptions of Schubert's Lieder-works that preserve the songs' lyrical intimacy while expanding their expressive possibilities on the piano. These include Fruhlingsglaube, Standchen von Shakespeare, and excerpts from Die schone Mullerin, where Liszt illuminates Schubert's emotional worlds with subtle pianistic colour and occasional virtuosic flourish. At the heart of the programme lies Robert Schumann's Waldszenen, a deeply introspective cycle in which nine miniature scenes form an imaginative, poetic walk through an inner forest-alternating between joy, mystery, tenderness, and melancholy. Through this selection, Kim highlights the richly interconnected sound worlds of Schubert, Schumann, and Liszt, revealing both continuity and evolution within the Romantic tradition.The album's second half turns toward a different aesthetic with Leos Janacek's V mlhach (In the Mists), written in 1912, a work shaped by personal grief and the composer's late-style search for distilled expression. It's four movements form a single, mist-shrouded psychological landscape, where fragmentary motives, speech-like rhythms, and shifting tonal colours create a fragile, introspective atmosphere. While faint traces of Debussy's influence may be heard-particularly in the luminous openings and closings-the music remains unmistakably Janacek's in it's tension, fatalism, and emotional immediacy. By juxtaposing these radically different composers, Kim creates an album that reflects the transformation of piano writing from Romantic lyricism to early modern expression, inviting listeners to hear how echoes of the past resonate through changing musical languages.