May 5, 2024
Remy Franck
Pianist Inna Faliks says about her new album: « It is my most personal album yet, with five premieres written for me in celebration of my favorite book, Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, my Ukrainian-
Jewish heritage, my hometown of Odesa, and so much more. This collection of music speaks to my love of dialogue between music and words. The connections between text and sound here are not just literal but emotional, based on memory, intuition, dreams and hopes. »
Much of the music on the album revolves around Master and Margarita, a Russian novel about art censorship and dictatorship. Several of the pieces on the album are directly related to the book, including, of course, Veronika Krausas’ expressive pianistic suite Master and Margarita, which is still quite conventional, but also Maya Miro Johnson’s Manuscripts Don’t Burn (an important line in the book). This piece is more experimental than the others.
Clarice Assad’s Godai uses a text by Steve Schroeder for a five-part suite about the five elements (called Godai in Japanese Buddhism). The music is reminiscent of Ravel and Debussy. The pianist manages to make the pieces, in which she plays and speaks, very expressive.
One of the strongest compositions is Ljova Zhurbins Voices (3 movements for piano and historical recordings). The first piece is Sirota, and the historical recording features the phenomenal tenor voice of Ukrainian cantor Gershon Sirota from 1908.
The Alter(ed) Zhok refers to a folk dance and uses a recording made in 1912 in Skvira (UIkraine). Fraydele recalls the Yiddish actress and singer Fraydele Oysher. On the 1953 recording she sings the prayer Ov-Harachamim, which was written in the 12th century and commemorates the destruction of Ashkenazi communities around the Rhine by Christian crusaders during the First Crusade. Ljova Zhurbin has succeeded in composing a new piano accompaniment to Fraydele Oysher’s song, which supports it incredibly well.
Embedded in these works are transcriptions of Schubert songs by Franz Liszt, in which Inna Faliks shows herself to be a very personal and innovative pianist, both in terms of rhythm and phrasing.
Inna Faliks has also found her own approach to Fazil Say’s Black Earth, which makes the effective music a little more thoughtful and mysterious than in Say’s own recording.
Mike Garson’s Psalm to Odessa is based on a well-known Odessa song and contains improvisational elements that Faliks introduces very spontaneously. The bottom line is that this is an album for and of our time. On the other hand, it gives the pianist the opportunity to make her mark in terms of interpretation.