Sietzen - Silence

A moody "silence" album with the famous Largo from Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in F minor, Albéniz ' irresistible Asturias, Pärt's Spiegel i'm Spiegel and more in arrangement for marimba. "He took up position at a marimba and coaxed from it sounds of rapturous fragility." (New York Times) "... this most questing of younger percussionists." (Grammophone) These are only a few examples that show how Christoph Sietzen has been praised by the media as an outstanding talent - a refreshingly natural musician notable for his technical mastery and powerful stage presence. Christoph Sietzen has just been awarded an Opus Klassik as the "Young Artist of the Year" for his first album with Sony Classical, "Incantations". For his new album, Sietzen recorded fascinating works by Bach, Albéniz, Piazzolla, Glass, Francisco Tárrega and Arvo Pärt. In this highly personal selection, Sietzen chose works in which he encounters silence. The album begins with "Opening" from Glassworks by minimal-music-composer Philip Glass, which draws it's special strength from slight changes and has much to do with silence for Sietzen. Asturias by Isaac Albéniz and Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Tárrega are both essential to this album as well, conveying something tangible and immediate. Sietzen finds it particularly enticing to contrast the movements Sarabande, Bourrée and Gigue from the E minor Lute Suite by Johann Sebastian Bach, with the other works on this album rather than playing them in succession as a self-contained form. A quite different and catchier world of sound is found in Romántico and Verano porteño by Astor Piazzolla. Arvo Pärt's Spiegel i'm Spiegel is the only piece on this recording in which Sietzen plays other instruments besides the marimba and also the only piece for which he did not adopt the text of the original edition one-to-one - a practice he considered very important in the other works. The album comes to an end with the famous second movement, Largo, from Bach's F minor Harpsichord Concerto which is beautiful in it's simplicity, the ornamented melody seeming to sway in two directions like a pendulum. With "Silence", Luxembourgish-Austrian percussionist shows once again his "awesome technique, unrelenting intensity, tremendous power, breath-taking speed, idiosyncratic presence and a profound musicality" (Pizzicato Magazine).