Continuum Portrait 4

Kirchner is sometimes considered a "difficult" composer, perhaps because he studied with Schoenberg. But Naxos has it right calling his work "powerful, expressive music... propulsive and improvisational in spirit." By the time the listener is halfway through the opening Duo, the "difficult" aspects have been left far behind by the exciting, vigorous expression of the music. The final work on the program, Triptych, is somewhat difficult listening, but by the time you get to it you'll probably be attuned enough to Kirchner's style so that the expressive element of the music will come through anyway. Considering that the world premiere recordings of some of these pieces were made by musicians like Leon Fleisher (the Sonata) and the composer himself (he's an amazing pianist), Continuum's performances have powerful memories to compete with but they come across with total success. Who would have known that Cheryl Seltzer, co-director of a contemporary music group, was such an exciting pianist! All these recordings except Triptych originally came out on LP and are not digital recordings despite the DDD designation, but they still sound excellent. Very highly recommended to anyone whose listening tastes don't stop at 1900.