Johanna Summer - Teardrop (Official Video) скачать в хорошем качестве

Johanna Summer - Teardrop (Official Video)

'On the day of a piano recording, everything revolves around tuning first thing in the morning. The pianist’s preferences, the demands of the repertoire, and the piano technician’s methods must all be brought into harmony. And as soon as the instrument is ready to be played, the adrenaline starts to kick in. We had scheduled a recording session for my album Songs with Words. I had already recorded a few pieces for it with pianists Igor Levit and Chilly Gonzales. Now, Johanna Summer arrived at my studio in the morning, and when she tested the piano after tuning, I heard something entirely new to my ears. Jazz! No one had ever played jazz on my upright piano before—a Krauss from the 1920s. On top of that, the instrument had been prepared with a strip of felt between the hammers and strings, creating an unusually warm, muted sound—at times reminiscent of a Fender Rhodes or a celesta. Old-fashioned, yet strikingly modern. As I stood there, hoping Johanna would like the tuning, I realized that her sound check was a self-contained solo music of its own—almost demanding to be recorded. We discussed it and agreed to dedicate a full day a few weeks later to capturing whatever came to Johanna’s mind on this piano. The nature of the instrument, combined with the felt, mechanically encouraged a rather lyrical, introspective expression, while making fast and loud passages nearly impossible to play. Johanna—who, on a modern grand piano, typically knows no limits in her unleashed improvisations on classical repertoire—embracing such restrictions seemed like an exciting prospect to both of us, as pianist and producer. We anticipated that two or three pieces might emerge—perhaps something to build on later. That seven pieces were completed after a long day in the studio was almost unbelievable. By the very next morning, as I listened through them for the first time, it became clear that this music formed a coherent cycle: two original improvisations open the set. If one were to secretly claim that this music had been composed rather than improvised, it would stand as a testament to compositional mastery rarely found in contemporary music. Giant Steps, Stella by Starlight, and I Remember You form the core of the jazz standards included. These performances—of which multiple takes were recorded—achieve something extraordinary: to my knowledge, these standards have never been conceived or played in this way before, let alone on a muted piano that is over a century old. Perhaps the free introductions faintly recall Mompou or Bartók—I can’t say for sure. But after just a few notes, they are unmistakably identifiable as Johanna Summer. The well-known standards are stripped down to the barest essence of their themes, and the brief solos fade away as imperceptibly as they emerge from the silence. How Teardrop by Massive Attack found its way into this sequence is hard to trace, but a stroke of inspiration in the studio could hardly be more fortuitous. The cycle concludes with Richard Wagner’s legendary, dissonant Elegy in A-flat major—a theme long believed to be his last, fragmentary sketch, possibly discarded from Tristan & Isolde. It was all a great surprise to us—almost something that simply happened to us. A process seemingly out of time. A fusion of absolute freedom and distinct limitations, of complete absence of intention and a deep longing for a kind of music that defies words but now has a name: Upright. Malakoff Kowalski Piano: Johanna Summer Recording: Malakoff Kowalski Mix & Mastering: Emanuel Uch Video: Emanuel Uch Recording produced by Malakoff Kowalski ℗ 2025 ACT Music + Vision GmbH & Co. KG © 2025 ACT Music + Vision GmbH & Co. KG