Description

The twelve solo piano pieces on his fifth album reveal a depth and concentration which thrills and calms alike.

Name: Lars Duppler - Naked (CD)
SKU: WEEC659734
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5 (104 reviews)

”I wasn”t really naked. I simply didn”t have any clothes on,” Josephine Baker once said. Known for his work with the Niels Klein, Jens Duppe or Nils Wulker Ensembles, pianist Lars Duppler turns this bon mot on its head: he performs fully clothed and ”naked” at the same time. The twelve solo piano pieces on his fifth album reveal a depth and concentration which thrills and calms alike. ”Naked is the logical answer to (my previous album) raetur,” says Lars Duppler. ”After the rocking quartet it”s just my piano and me.” Duppler actually used three Steinway D grand pianos for the recording in DLF”s venerable chamber music hall. With ample breathing space and a deliberate, perfected yet subtle aesthetic, a richly varied cosmos of sound unfolds, which is as close to the late Romantic period as it is to the jazz of Paul Bley or John Taylor and the music of Frederic Mompou or Witold Lutoslawski. Naked also sounds absolutely modern and yet so much more alive than mere electronic plink plonk from the electronic music scene, which only makes it more immediate. Six wonderfully original compositions, two very singular interpretations of Rodgers & Hammerstein”s standard ”My Favorite Things” and Irving Berlin”s ”How Deep Is the Ocean”, as well as various, no less elaborate interludes (recorded with a seventies-era tape echo, operated manually and without the use of MIDIfication) unite on naked into a Gesamtkunstwerk with various currents and arcs of tension. One can concentrate on this music or listen casually, evenings or mornings and of course in every imaginable state of revelation – it fascinates and surprises anew.