Message from Italy

[pianowolfi]

A sunny Sunday morning in a musty practice room in the Italian Alps.
I am preparing for the competition the next day, but I need to step out and do some improv to recover.
After a while the church bells start to ring in a particular beautiful order. First I ignore them, as they are omnipresent up there every day, but then it becomes more and more a dialogue



Edit (Aug. 28, 2012) merged the two files into one: Walk in the Dark --Bells 2

[nick_op]

Wow, I was totally immersed by this improv. The interaction of the piano and the bells was great - sometimes you aligned your playing to them, other times you weaved around them and yet others you played in such a way as to not take the rhythm of the bells as a guide at all. I enjoyed the sheer variety of sounds and harmonies, too.

I think this will reveal even more on repeated listenings.

[pianowolfi]

Hi Nick, thank you for your comments
Yeah there was a lot going on in that moment, threads from all over my life came in some way together, one unique moment for sure. I love secrets, and I love bells

[austinarg]

Beautiful improv. Although since I am not a very good improviser, I would have just played Ravel's Le Gibet with those bells in the background 

[pianowolfi]

Oh yeah Le Gibet would fit I think

thank you for listening

[m1469]

Fun to listen to and of course to hear these bells again!  I'm happy you were able to enjoy some musical interplay with them; it seems appropriate.  One of the things that struck me about being in Vienna, as well as in Völs, were the bells and the fact that they have a certain timbre there which the ones I've heard in the US don't ... I think that many of the ones I've heard in the US are not actually even bells anymore but recordings, and I'm not sure if there is a certain metal used in these bells in Europe or if it's the age of the bells, but they sound different.

[pianowolfi]

Yeah actually it might be a very old tradition and craftsmanship of the bell founders.
I noticed that they were like "not in tune" with the piano, but honestly, the more they were not in tune the more I liked it, it's like having interesting quarter tone effects at hand

[pianowolfi]

Beautiful improv. Although since I am not a very good improviser, I would have just played Ravel's Le Gibet with those bells in the background  

hmm...actually...I have a "Gibet" part of this, which I played before and which was actually leading up to this one!
But I wasn't sure if I should post it, it's excessively repetitive and sinister and I am afraid that nobody would enjoy listening to it...:-S

[nick_op]

hmm...actually...I have a "Gibet" part of this, which I played before and which was actually leading up to this one!
But I wasn't sure if I should post it, it's excessively repetitive and sinister and I am afraid that nobody would enjoy listening to it...:-S

I'd love to hear it, even if it's terrifying! We'd be stuck with a pretty boring repertoire if composers had avoided writing music that sounded sinister. Besides, even if it's not that pleasant to listen to I think there's always something to learn by absorbing music that someone else has created.

[austinarg]

hmm...actually...I have a "Gibet" part of this, which I played before and which was actually leading up to this one!
But I wasn't sure if I should post it, it's excessively repetitive and sinister and I am afraid that nobody would enjoy listening to it...:-S

Well, this is a nice surprise! Please, let us listen to it!

[pianowolfi]

Well, this is a nice surprise! Please, let us listen to it!

Okay here it is.
Those how know me will spot the halfway Dies Irae thing I guess...

O.o

[nick_op]

Okay here it is.
Those how know me will spot the halfway Dies Irae thing I guess...

O.o

The sense of desperation is relentless! I enjoyed the richness of the harmony, and the contrast of the maddening un-pedalled section at the end. The fact that I know that I could not have conceived of it myself made it all the more interesting.

[pianowolfi]

Yeah I actually like it myself too. Sometimes I think that some of my improvs are actually like a medicine to me, a kind of self-therapy I just play the music that I miss and would like to listen to...

[ted]

I hear several exquisitely contrasted, yet inseparable dualities in the bell piece. There is the external, real bell-landscape and there is the vast, internal bellscape of Wolfi-mind, with its usual brooding portent, both ominous and numinous. Then there is the duality of East and West. Two thousand years of Western tradition ringing down the centuries through the window, and its Oriental counterpart, serene as a Sung landscape, emerging from the guzheng disguised as a piano. Thirdly, there is the happy non-coincidence of pitches, the tuning of order and human tradition opposes a temperament much more ancient and powerful.

I was reminded of Debussy and Charles Ives, and their common fascination with bells sounding "in the cracks between the notes". Your improvisation has suddenly made everything clear for me. I did not understand what they meant or why they considered it significant, but now I do. A new light has also suddenly shone for me on certain passages of Ives, especially some of the mighty phrases in the first piano sonata.

Thank you, I understand now.

[pianowolfi]

That's an amazing comment, Ted! It makes me understand better myself. Thank you so much!

[beebert]

This is wondeful pianowolfi! I am listening to this now and I did it earlier, and I wild do it again. I cannot thank you enough for this, I find it absolutely marvelous!

[pianowolfi]

Thank you beebert, it means a lot to me!
It actually feels like this was just the right point in time to play something I didn't ever plan before, and now it contains even so much more than I am able to understand, but I feel it, and I feel that it's right and that it had to happen.

[rltraveler]

Thanks for posting this nice melange.  The piano was the focus at the beginning when the bell tones were remote, and the bells the focus at the end.  I thought the improvisation transitioned well to the successive individual bells tones, and anticipated the clamorous bells ensemble so that when the piano stopped the bells fell naturally into the void.  This kept my interest to the end.

[pianowolfi]

Hi rltraveler, welcome to Pianostreet and thank you for listening and posting in!

Yes your description fits very much what happened there. There was this void beforehand, this almost expectant void, and it felt like just right that the bells fell into place. I didn't realize that from the beginning though, it actually took me a while to accept the serious "competition" but once I did it became a special moment. It had something conciliative.

[chopinatic]

true beauty to be sure

[pianowolfi]

Thank you Chopinatic

The more I think about it it becomes clear to me that both pieces are two parts of a whole. So I have merged them into one file, they were anyway played shortly after each other.

It's a 30 minutes long meditation on a path in life and it's changes. The darkness doesn't resolve completely in the bell's part but at least there is hope. It is a profound darkness and it is a symbolum of a secret path in life, part of which is in the dark, but which has to be walked until the end

I guess I won't be here often as I am going through a bit difficult times, so I wish all of you the best until we meet again

[ted]

Sorry to hear that Wolfi. Whatever happens you can be buoyed up in the certainty of respect and moral support of your many admirers here.

[pianowolfi]

You are very nice and wise Ted, thank you!

It's a phase, and it is necessary I think