Eunmi Ko - Constellations (2019)

David Liptak’s piano music has always displayed this composer’s personality as one intimately tied to the physicality of the instrument. Previously, he combined his work as a composer with that as a pianist, most often presenting new composition. The sound and feel of the piano as a contrapuntal instrument underlies his work as a composer. The two compositions of this recording are performed by pianist Eunmi Ko, whose grace and imagination as a performer is a perfect match to the music.

Liptak’s Concerto for Piano and Percussion Orchestra is the newer work of the recording, written for Eunmi Ko and percussionist Robert McCormick in 2018. Its three movements have the basic structure of a conventional concerto, although the fluidity of musical idea confuses the issue. The first movement, “Dark and mysterious,” begins in the lowest register of the piano and uses a large tam-tam and bass drum sounding very softly to set the tone of darkness and unpredictability. The music rarely settles, musical gestures give way as others take their place, and the sense of restlessness and change seems constant. The second movement – most often slower and distinctly lyrical in traditional concertos – starts as expected but soon veers off into a music which is dramatic and robust – as might be expected from the first movement – and later features an extended cadenza for the piano, which is more likely to appear in a third movement. The final movement is “Rapid and light,” and on the surface it seems that we’ve arrived a place where darkness clears and the music finds solid ground. Before the piece ends however, we are reminded that dark times offer no easy escape, and the music closes by evaporating into the air.

Constellations, composed between April and October 2010 for pianist Zuzanna Szewczyk Kwon, is a set of nine meticulously crafted character pieces for solo piano. These are like Robert Schumann’s Kreisleriana in that they are a limited collection of extended pieces, rather than shorter pieces, such as preludes, for example. Named after lesser known constellations, the pieces sparkle with bright energy and constant invention. And yet, the stars are only one influence on the music, and the work yields a constellation of other meanings, including Greek mythology, Schumann’s music, and associations with the pianist to whom they are dedicated.

The 9 pieces of Constellations are arranged in three groups, and each group includes a representation of a Greek mythological figure or his symbol (Cassiopeia, Argo Navis - for Jason, and Lyra - for Orpheus), a hunter (Orion, Vulpecula, and Canis Major and Canis Minor - the companion dogs of Orion), and a bird (Cygnus, Columba, and Aquila). Each set ends with a bird piece, and each of the bird pieces contains a reference to a work by Schumann: Cygnus quotes a short passage from the first piece in Kreisleriana, Columba includes a “footnote” quotation of "Vogel als Prophet" from Waldszenen, and there is a disguised quotation of "Des Abends" from the Fantasy pieces, op. 12, in Aquila.

In his excellent liner notes for this album, composer Adam Roberts writes about Liptak’s referencing Greek mythology in this way.