in Your Head

Weelock Spratlani, Montaine, Asia, St Laurent, Sanford

    Dana Muller, Gary Steigerwalt,

     Navona 6190 –  71 minutes

Dana Muller and Gary Stelgerwalt have performed as duo pianists for more than three decades, creating programs that “encompass the historical and stylistic gamut of the piano four-hand genre”. This album brings together several pieces that they have recently commissioned, along with favorites from the past, from John LaMontaine’s 1965 4-Hands Sonata to the 2018 work by David Sanford, The Silent Hearth The latter starts off with an abrupt, quick passage of five notes in the bass register of the piano, followed by nearly 16 seconds of silence. What follows is a work filled with moments of silence, resonance, and action. The inspiration for It was Steinhert Hall in Boston and performances there long ago. The duo has previously recorded there, and Sanford was taken with Stelgerwalt’s description of its “dark cavernous, debris-strewn space that visually echoed the concerts from before its closure venue in 1942”. Sanford meets his musical goals In this piece without a doubt. Matthew St Laurent’s Overture for a Lurid Dream is filled with wayward harmonies, free, breathing phrases, and a structure to his melodies that incorporates the dream logic or his subject matter. As a composer for commercials and television, St Laurent wrote this piece as a soundtrack to lucid dreaming, and he has tempered this piece’s opulent grandeur with soft sweetness. Daniel Asia’s Iris Is a three-movement work that fully explores shades of whimsy, hopeful contemplation, and anxiety-propelled energy. Lewis Spratian writes that his Dreamworlds “probes the dreams of three very

unlike figures: St Francis of Assist, Hitler, and a nameless bureaucrat. Each movement emerges nameless bureaucrat. Each movement emerges from some primordial, universal dream tissue, in and against which the actual dreams play out.” This work unfolds like a Kafka short story: sometimes unnerving, with changes in pace or melody right around the corner, and a distinctly sinister undertone. Spratian’s work (and the duo’s performance of it) captures one’s attention from the beginning and never lets go. Distinctly heartfelt playing and well-chosen programming make this a terrific album of four-hand piano works.