{"id":12172,"date":"2023-03-23T11:36:28","date_gmt":"2023-03-23T11:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pianostreet.com\/blog\/?p=12172"},"modified":"2023-03-25T07:08:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-25T07:08:11","slug":"reimagine-contemporary-piano-pieces-with-inspiration-from-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pianostreet.com\/blog\/articles\/reimagine-contemporary-piano-pieces-with-inspiration-from-the-past-12172\/","title":{"rendered":"Reimagine! – Contemporary Piano Pieces with Inspiration from the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pianist Inna Faliks\u2019 project \u201cReimagine – Nine World Premieres\u201d includes composers\u2019 responses to Beethoven\u2019s late Op. 126 Bagatelles<\/a> as well as Maurice Ravel\u2019s Gaspard de la nuit<\/a>. Piano Street enjoyed her performance at the Cremona Musica and got the opportunity to talk to her about her ambitious project.<\/span><\/p>\n

At Cremona Musica\u2019s Piano Experience<\/a> last fall, one half of Ukranian-American pianist Inna Faliks\u2019 project \u201cReimagine – Nine World Premieres\u201d, was brought to an international audience. This second half called; “Reimagining Gaspard de la nuit\u201d brought more than Faliks\u2019 impressive rendition of the original composition though. We heard three commissioned composers\u2019 reactions on Ravel\u2019s work through their own compositions. Aesthetically, very different in styles. <\/p>\n

The whole project, which Faliks has performed worldwide, also includes composers\u2019 responses to Beethoven\u2019s late Op. 126 Bagatelles, and the whole exciting enterprise can be enjoyed on Faliks\u2019 album released for the Navona label in 2021. So, in whole, nine contemporary composers, including Richard Danielpour, Paola Prestini, Billy Childs and Timo Andres, were commissioned to craft responses to Ludwig van Beethoven\u2019s Bagatelles, op. 126 as well as Maurice Ravel\u2019s Gaspard de la nuit. According to critics the results are exhilarating, not least owing to Faliks\u2019 stunningly precise and sensitive pianistic interpretations. Inna Faliks manages to unite three centuries of musical styles and social commentary, as well as producing an album monument not only to the genius of Beethoven and Ravel, but also to the perseverance and verve of some of today\u2019s most exciting and important composers.<\/p>\n

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Patrick Jovell: Thank you for your lovely performance of Ravel\u2019s Gaspard de la nuit at Cremona Musica. Can you tell me the background of this whole \u201dre-imagining idea\u201d?<\/em><\/p>\n

Inna Faliks: The idea was to create a bridge between past and present. The Beethoven Bagatelles Op. 126 are forward looking, experimental, transcendent but also humorous and simple. For me, programming new music is hugely important, and a better way to present it to a larger audience is to invite them to connect to something they already know, and then listen beyond it. So I asked 6 friends, wonderful composers of jazz, film, contemporary classical music etc., to pick a bagatelle and use it as a starting point. My idea was to build this bridge between the past, present and future. I continued by asking 3 of the best known American composers – jazz star and composer Billy Childs, Timo Andres and Paola Prestini – to respond to Gaspard de la nuit, a work I recorded in 2008 on my first commercial record on MSR called Sound of Verse, and one I perform frequently. This work in itself was a response to poetry – so the project becomes almost Meta here. What I got were three significant, large new works for the piano.<\/p>\n