Daniel Lentz

Point Conception is Daniel Lentz’s wild nine-piano tribute to the octave. It amasses and bubbles over with incessant streams of octaves (harmonic and melodic) that run the length of the keyboard. Through a “cascading echo system,” long-time Lentz Ensemble pianist Arlene Dunlap performs all of its parts.

Presented with Point Conception (which was originally issued as a Cold Blue LP in the mid-80s) is Lentz’s previously unrecorded NightBreaker, a kaleidoscopic and explosive tour de force for four pianos. An exciting roller-coaster of a work, it ambles, jumps, careens, pauses, and flings itself forward. Through overdubbing, noted Los Angeles pianist Bryon Pezzone performs all of NightBreaker‘s parts.

Both pieces revel in and comment on the conventions of late-19th-century harmony and harmonic motion.

“Lentz has devised a unique bit of piano literature. It simultaneously glorifies the acoustical grandeur of the grand piano and regales its legacy with technology and sly insouciance. Point Conception is Lentz’s backhanded answer to the cool purr of ambient piano music. Such is the typical Lentz reply; tossing knuckleballs into extant musical traditions, but doing so with disarming grace.” —Los Angeles Reader

“Two absolutely gorgeous works for overdubbed acoustic pianos—one with four instruments and one with nine.” —Electronic Musician magazine