Glauco Venier - Miniatures: Music For Piano And Percussion (2016) Hi-Res

Tracklist:

01 Ritual (Glauco Venier) 03:13
02 Tiziano's Painting (Glauco Venier) 04:13
03 No. 40 (Georges I. Gurdjieff & Thomas de Hartmann) 02:40
04 Byzantine Icon (Glauco Venier) 03:26
05 Serenity (Glauco Venier) 04:24
06 Abstractio (Glauco Venier) 02:13
07 Prayer (Glauco Venier) 03:40
08 Gunam (Alessandra Franco) 05:13
09 Madiba (Glauco Venier) 02:52
10 The Temple - War - Litanies (Glauco Venier) 08:05
11 Krunk (Komitas Vardapet) 03:35
12 Ave Gloriosa Mater Salvatoris (Anonymus C13) 03:39
13 Visible Spirit (Glauco Venier) 02:09
14 Deep and Far (Glauco Venier) 01:38
15 Ce jour de l'an (Guillaume Dufay) 03:51

Performers:
Glauco Venier, piano & soundsculptures

Italian pianist Glauco Venier adds his own spin to the ECM solo piano tradition with his debut “Miniatures: Music For Piano and Percussion”. What sets the album apart from the vast array of solo albums on the label is that it is supplemented by “sonorous sculptures”, percussion instruments custom built by artists Harry Bertoja and Giorgio Celiberti following an inquiry from Manfred Eicher after the producer was impressed hearing the results on vocalist Norma Winstone’s “Stories Yet To Tell” (ECM, 2010) as it was being mixed.

Venier’s musical influences span a large spectrum from jazz, to the time played organ in church and studied the instrument at the conservatory at Udine. The fifteen pieces of the program blend these influences into a cohesive whole, mostly improvised but also featuring compositions by Gurdjieff and Komitas. The music itself evokes the visual and meditative, the pianist crafting each miniature methodically and with careful attention to melodic information. Slinky like metals announce the opening of “Ritual” lending a shimmering three dimensional texture to the soundstage, as Venier’s assertive piano chords set the tone for the mood of the music ahead. Rather than being rhythmic, the use of various gongs, bells and metals is tonal and used for melody, the gongs on “Abstractio” for example are reminiscent of Buddhist temple bells found in prayer and the rituals of the Theravada school. “Serenity” is a quiet moving reflection of peace, and “Temple, War, Litanies” the longest track, utilizes rich sub bass tuned gongs as motifs that move between the labyrinth first section, the slightly unsettled middle, and calm final section. For the pieces brought to the date by other composers, “Krunk” by Komitas is particularly attention grabbing. The work of Armenian composer Komitas will be very familiar to listeners of ECM records, within the solemn melody, one can almost hear the voices that marked the extended orchestrations that Tigran Hamasyan created on the provocative “Luys I Luso” (ECM, 2015).

Glauco Venier through the inclusion of the various percussion instruments has created a rich soundscape that joins the improvised music, sacred, and classical worlds together. When listened to intently, the music consistently reveals subtle details, but when used as background, the music shines for it’s deeply reflective meditative qualities. A fine album that can be enjoyed from a number of different perspectives.