'FANTASIE--FANTASME'
David Greilsammer, piano. Naïve V 5081; CD.
The idea of choosing piano works for a solo recording that explores the concept of fantasy may not seem all that original. But on this fascinating album the Israeli pianist David Greilsammer explores the concept in a program of striking diversity, exposing musical resonances among disparate works by composers from Bach and Brahms to Cage to Ligeti. Of course the concept would mean little were the performances not so brilliant and probing. Mr. Greilsammer, born in Jerusalem in 1977, is a formidable pianist.
He begins with one of the boldest fantasies ever written, the first part of Bach's ''Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue,'' playing just that rhapsodic and grimly agitated fantasy section. He then segues directly into the first of two recent ''Fantastrophes'' by Jonathan Keren, frenetically jazzy music that shifts between states of sublime mysticism and catastrophic wildness.
The surprising segues continue, as Mr. Greilsammer moves to Brahms's mellow Intermezzo in A minor from the Op. 116 Fantasies, then to the first three of Schoenberg's elusive Six Little Piano Pieces and Ligeti's fantastical ''Musica Ricercata'' (the sixth movement), in which Ligeti's jittery counterpoint harkens to Bach.
''The Presentiment,'' a hallucinogenic movement from Janacek's Sonata ''1.X.1905,'' which follows, proves an ideal setup for Cage's playfully exotic Sonata No. 5 for Prepared Piano. Mozart's stormy, episodic Fantasy in C minor (K. 475), which Mr. Greilsammer plays with arresting freedom yet crisp articulation, marks the halfway point in the program.
From there he circles back almost in a mirror reflection, through Cage, Janacek, Ligeti and so on, playing some of the missing movements and parts of works we have already heard incomplete, concluding with the fugue from the Bach piece. Somehow, in this context, and thanks to Mr. Greilsammer's dynamic performance, the imposing counterpoint of Bach's great fugue sounds fantastical.
review by ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Published: November 9, 2008
The New York Times
Arts & Leisure section, page 32
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Hirst Studio Hard Times
He might have sold more than $200 million in art at a two-day auction in London this year, but not even Damien Hirst, below, is immune to the effects of the ailing economy. The Guardian reported that several workers who make the pills for Mr. Hirst’s drug-cabinet artworks were told their contracts would not be renewed. A spokesman for Mr. Hirst’s company, Science Ltd., would not confirm for The Guardian how many jobs were shed but said, “We have to be mindful of the current economic climate and how this may affect us in the future.” In 2007 Mr. Hirst’s work “Lullaby Spring,” a cabinet filled with pills painted by hand sold for $14.4 million. But at an auction this month at Sotheby’s in New York, a minor Hirst work sold for well below its estimate while a second did not sell at all.
Compiled by Dave Itzkoff
Published: November 24, 2008