"For him, the concert hall provides the freedom to let his musical mind roam, linger on a thought or rush through another, suggest a picture but then change the slide, and jump-cut from mood to mood. He has the luxury of incoherence. He uses that tool to its fullest in the piano concerto he wrote for Emanuel Ax."
"If you know what you're listening for in the first movement, you can just make out what Williams admires in Tatum: his harmonic ear and the ability to move simultaneously fast and slow, to fire off a Roman candle of notes at ferocious speed and make it sound like a caress."
"In Tatum's playing, any one note was just the launchpad for a dozen more. A sentimental tune might explode into a supernova, and a beat was just the scaffolding for rhythms of astounding complexity. Williams abstracts those qualities."
John Williams, at 94 years old, has created his first piano concerto for pianist Emanuel Ax, marking a significant milestone in his prolific career. Despite beginning as a pianist and possessing extensive knowledge of orchestral techniques, Williams had never written a concerto until Ax commissioned one. The resulting work features a rich, sometimes complex score that pays homage to three 20th-century jazz legends: Art Tatum, Bill Evans, and Oscar Peterson. Rather than imitating these musicians, Williams abstracts their qualities, particularly Tatum's harmonic sophistication and ability to blend rapid passages with lyrical expression. The concerto opens with a solo cadenza showcasing Ax's technical abilities through varied textures and rhythmic flexibility.
Read at Vulture
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]