Minimal Piano: Robert Haigh and Machinefabriek's Sol Sketches

Minimal piano albums by 'home-listening' composers are a dime a dozen and usually dull as dishwater, but so inoffensive, calm and polite as to make antagonism seem unnecessarily harsh. Nonetheless it is easy, lazy and indulgent music, and itself largely unnecessary when there's so much old music to discover and rediscover. Given the vast volume of the stuff being churned out, I'm not alone in finding minimal piano music particularly enjoyable.

One such artist I've only just been made aware of is Robert Haigh. He's a firm Satie devotee, borrowing liberally in places, but respectfully, and only the most 'Satie-esque' stuff - those modal suspended patterns that define the Gnossiennes and Gympnopedies (No one seems brave enough to take on the late-Satie of Parade or Socrate).



So it's certainly lite, but never pathetic, and successfully avoids any George Winston new-agey Muzac comparisons, just. Apparently his 1980s releases are where it's at, but those from 2008-, such as Written on Water and last year's gorgeous Anonymous Lights show a return to form. Just avoid those in between, as he slathered awkward breakbeats over them and called himself The Omni Trio.





Machinefabriek's Rutger Zuydervelt demonstrates his knack for acoustic simplicity with Sol Sketches, a series of supremely reduced piano miniatures released in advance of the documentary film on artist Sol LeWitt they soundtrack. Zuydervelt looks to Morton Feldman and specifically Ligeti's infuriating Musica Ricercata, basing each sketch on mere handfuls of notes, with subtle processing allowing notes to continue to sound long beyond their usual decay. This gives them a form analogous to Akira Rabelais' Satie and Bartok deconstructions Eisoptrophobia, or Jonathan Coleclough's excellent Period, but Zydervelt is purer still. Even those pieces most reliant on processing, droning strings humming beneath slow, sparse triads, retain a minimalist purity absent from all but the most refined compositions, like Arvo Part recorded in an anechoic chamber. Those with some cash to spare ought to shell out for the limited 4 x 10" vinyl release + bonus eraser, as the artwork matches the beauty of the sounds.

Composer Pianists on Vinyl

As part of our vinyl-only-at-home policy we listened to a series of recordings of composer pianists playing their own works.

Poulenc Plays Poulenc and Satie
Poulenc has the right French cheeky irony to get the wit, and solemnity, from Satie, and his own tunes sound equally worthy alongside, and perhaps more cleverly thought through, in a traditional structural sense. That he goes beyond the requisite Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes also helps his cause. No youtube videos but here he is with Rampal playing his flute sonata.



Shostakovich plays Shostakovich
Great pieces these, recorded by some of the greats. Richter used to play some of them, and when asked by Shostakovich why he didn't play them all, responded 'I only play the good ones'. These and his concertos are available on CD, EMI I believe:



Always good to hear composers play their own works, but Tatiana nikolayeva plays them best. Worth picking up the complete set on Regis for ten quid, but here are the first ten to DL in FLAC:
Download Part 1
Download Part 2

Ravel plays Ravel
My aunt played me this when she gave me piano lessons and I fell in love with it; it's still among my favourite recordings, for all his technical faults. Recorded from player piano rolls or somesuch, so the sound is good and you get all the creaks and clunks of Ravel's hands and feet on instrument.




I don't have this on vinyl but my how great it is! Ives playing and singing his bonkers 'They are There', makes Tom Waits sound like a goodie-two-shoes choirboy: