Piano works (Paris, cité de la musique)

CD Piano works (Paris, cité de la musique) Jean Frédéric Neuburger

Maldoror is a fantastic panorama lasting around twenty minutes, freely inspired by the poetic and subversive universe of Lautréamont's Chants de Maldoror (1868): one may detect in it a hotchpotch of influences, including Stockhausen, Xenakis for the fragmentation of the piano at certain points, and probably even the Schumann of the Phantasiestücke. In addition to the traditional virtuosity demanded by the work, the pianist must prepare the strings of four bass notes in order to produce a deformed sound, more percussive in nature, while still retaining the resonant aspect of the piano.
However, we are not dealing here with a genuine percussion-piano in the manner of John Cage, but rather an imaginary organ pedalboard and deformations, almost to the point of ugliness, of the attacks in
the instrument's bottom register.
Jean Frederic Neuburger