Makiko Nishikaze

2004 release **

"Another joint production by Edition Wandelweiser and Radio Bremen testifies to the originality of the Japanese composer Makiko Nishikaze. Her idiosyncratic diptych pianopera l & II (2002), with its unpredictably alternating sound structures, follows no discernible logic, yet its musical structure never seems arbitrary, so that the music, despite the great aesthetic distance, certainly seems related to Luigi Archetti's CD discussed at the beginning. It is the varied penetration into sounds and pauses, whose duration, density, range, and tonal contrasts are constantly varied, yet whose dynamics primarily reside in quiet areas. With great sensitivity for the often minimal differences in touch and articulation, pianist John McAlpine has taken on these delicate structures, oscillating indefinitely between harmonic and melodic development. Under his hands, the music seems to remain in a state of weightlessness, from which the sounds repeatedly emerge to combine into new and different figures."