Nocturne (Live at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival)

Album review

Before he co-founded Can in 1968, Irmin Schmidt studied composition under Karlheinz Stockhausen and György Ligeti, and was taught the prepared piano technique by none other than John Cage. Schmidt's 2018 studio album, 5 Klavierstücke, contained improvisations for partly prepared as well as unprepared piano, and was informed by his formative studies and his work with Can as well as Japanese gagaku music. Nocturne is a recording of Schmidt's first-ever solo piano concert in the U.K., as part of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival which took place in November of 2019. As on his previous album, Schmidt's improvisations are accompanied by ambient sounds provided by producer and engineer Gareth Jones. The rustling noises and overheard airplanes of the album's "Klavierstück II" reappear on the 18-minute performance of the piece, which progresses through abrupt slaps of piano notes, more nebulous clusters, and brief, gamelan-like rhythmic passages. Two newer compositions are built around everyday sounds, certainly echoing Cage's philosophies beyond the usage of prepared piano. "Nocturne" foregrounds steadily dripping drops of water, occasionally splashing out in irregular intervals, and Schmidt's piano faintly flickers around it, gradually taking the spotlight after the water sound recedes. "Yonder," composed following the 2019 Notre Dame Cathedral fire, is filled with the metallic clanging of church bells, a sound with deep personal significance to Schmidt throughout his life. He explains that when he grew up in Germany following World War II, the church tower was the only structure intact while everything else lay in ruins, and the bells' hourly peals were inescapable, so hearing them continues to bring an odd sense of security. The bells include resounding gongs as well as more alarming chimes and closely miked revolving shuffles, alternating between more musical tones and mechanical noises. Schmidt's piano playing similarly varies from a stark, resounding chord to more scattered, percussive tinkling, and like the source material, it achieves the effect of being simultaneously soothing and haunting.

© Paul Simpson /TiVo