Makiko Nishikaze
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Pianopera I & II |
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Order Reference: |
EWR 0405 |
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Medium: |
CD |
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Composer: |
Makiko Nishikaze |
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Performer: |
John McAlpine, Piano |
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What
struck me most about Makiko Nishikaze’s piano music, when I heard it for the
first time, was its waywardness. In a kind of musical stream of
consciousness, delicate melodic strands floated quietly and unpredictably
over the entire keyboard like the disconnected thoughts of a daydreamer. And
yet it sounded perfectly natural and inevitable: some mysterious logic was
holding it all together. Immediately I began thinking about how I would
interpret this music, and in May, 2002, had the opportunity to do so when she
entrusted me with the first performance of her 70-minute long “Piano
Islands”. Makiko Nishikaze liked my interpretation, and decided thereupon
to compose a further piano piece, the two-part “pianopera”, especially
for me. Disliking technical discussions
of her music - how it sounds, she says, is more important than how it’s made-
all Makiko Nishikaze is prepared to divulge is that she composes system- atically, but with very flexible
systems, and that the pitches, intervals and durations she uses are derived
from sets of proportions. Before beginning “pianopera I” she carefully
measured the lengths of my arms and fingers, the measurements obtained
providing the set of proportions for the piece. I was reminded of composers
like Schumann and Ravel deriving themes from the letters of their dedicatees’
names. In 2003 Makiko Nishikaze was
awarded a grant to work at the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles, formerly the home
of novelist Lion Feuchtwanger and a meeting-place for writers and composers
who, like him, were exiles from Nazi Germany. While she was there I was
invited to give the first performances of “pianopera I” and “pianopera
II”, which took place on the 23rd of April in the library on
an old Blüthner grand piano that had once belonged to the composer Ernst
Toch. And what is the plot of this
opera in two acts for piano? That’s up to you, Dear Listener. John McAlpine |
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