Water (2016)

The water-themed musicale is one of the oldest concert types in Western music. To add something new to it is a tall order, but pianist Hélène Grimaud inarguably does here. She does so with the conventional repertoire on the album alone: edgily static pieces by Luciano Berio and Toru Takemitsu broaden out into and deepen the Romantic and post-Romantic favorites from Ravel, Fauré, Liszt, Albéniz, Janácek, and Debussy (the marvelous Cathédrale Engloutie). But Grimaud seems to want to up her game still further. In concert with ... Read More

The water-themed musicale is one of the oldest concert types in Western music. To add something new to it is a tall order, but pianist Hélène Grimaud inarguably does here. She does so with the conventional repertoire on the album alone: edgily static pieces by Luciano Berio and Toru Takemitsu broaden out into and deepen the Romantic and post-Romantic favorites from Ravel, Fauré, Liszt, Albéniz, Janácek, and Debussy (the marvelous Cathédrale Engloutie). But Grimaud seems to want to up her game still further. In concert with this material she has employed such devices as playing on a piano marooned within a pool of water. Whether this focuses the listener's attention is debatable, but it's mild compared with the strategy employed on this album: Grimaud collaborates with producer and electronica figure Nitin Sawhney to create seven "transitions" (not a terribly poetic name), all titled Water and connecting the repertory works on the program. Each work ends conventionally, but the Sawhney transitions run... Read Less