Hans Thomalla / Yumi Suehiro
Ballade.Rauschen
SIDEBAND RECORDS 12
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The album presents Hans Thomalla's works for piano solo recorded by Yumi Suehiro. The CD features three works from different periods in the composer's oeuvre: The early Fragment, influenced by seminal works of the 1960s and 1970s European Avantgarde; Piano Counterpart, with its extensive use of historic objects from the classical piano repertoire; and the piece that lends its title to the album, Ballade.Rauschen, an almost 22-minute long melodic thread spun over the keyboard, experiencing extensive accelerations and decelerations, accumulations into massive blocks of sounds, brief windows into historic memory, and threats of both silence and noise.
Yumi Suehiro, one of the most versatile and accomplished pianists of contemporary music and a long-time collaborator of the composer, recorded the works at New Yorks Oktaven Audio Studio, and at Patrych Sound Studios between 2021 and 2024.
Supported by the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University
"The striking beauty of "Ballade. Rauschen" lies equally in what we hear and what is left unsaid. This captivating balance is wonderfully achieved by Yumi Suehiro, who has mastered the art of subtle implication, silence, and irresistibly assertive expression.”
Jaroslaw Kapuscinski, Composer and Pianist, Professor of Music, Stanford University
Hans Thomalla's piano pieces recall the playfulness and at the same time, the seriousness, with which one would explore the behemoth of an instrument that is the piano when first approaching it. The discovery of all of its tones, its timbres, and range of dynamics triggers "remembrances" of other music, and induces a fevered dream in which the player suddenly seems to enter a parallel reality for a moment, before reentering Thomalla's deconstructed world of discovery.
Yumi Suehiro's playing captures both the lightness and gravitas of this journey, with fullness of tone and an extreme sensitivity to the colour of each sound she creates. She molds the gestures without affectation, and projects a constant joy of searching and discovery that serves the music perfectly.
Claudia Chan, Pianist and Conductor
"Ballade Rauschen, from its dramatic spacious opening to its explosive climax, never lets up. Almost tonal in sections, with an appealing childlike clarity, the constant mood shifts always hold one’s attention.
Ms. Suehiro plays these works brilliantly, savoring each new idea with scintillating clarity, while fitting them together with great finesse.
Peter Vinograde, Concert Pianist, Manhattan School of Music