This disc has been reviewed
by Jonathan Woolf elsewhere on these pages, but deserves re-visiting,
not only as a part of Roger Woodward’s remarkable recorded repertoire,
but as a significant cycle for piano solo.
Vom Klang des Lebens, dedicated to the composer’s wife
and son, is a highly personal set of twelve pieces which express
multiple layers, from intimate feelings to the ambitious if
almost incidental creation of a monument to musical culture
in recent times. The title ‘The Sound of Life’ comes from a
book by French doctor Alfred A. Tomatis, who was able to demonstrate
that the sense of hearing is already fully developed in the
fifth month of pregnancy. Hamel, always a skilled and enthusiastic
pianist, improvised and notated the basis of several of the
pieces we have here, and the work as a whole represents something
of a musical diary from the period in which it was written.
There is a great deal of symbolism in the work, and a study
of the structural and thematic relationships threading themselves
through the cycle would be a fascinating study. The most important
thing as an initial impression is that this is hardly the kind
of forbidding avant-garde music which will put off all but the
most serious of contemporary music collectors. There are a few
‘modern’ sounding movements, but the over-riding impression
one takes away is of music which is often charmingly romantic
and tonal. That improvisatory feel inhabits much of the music,
particularly in longer pieces such as the In memoriam Giacinto
Scelsi. As one might expect, Milestone for Miles Davis
has a strong feel of harmonic progression, and a rolling
rhythm which is more Miles than minimalist, though not essentially
jazz derived. Tremolando textures create their own ostinato
feel for In memoriam Walter Bachauer, who was an editor
and music journalist who had been greatly attracted to minimalist
music. A powerful and moving pianistic and musical statement,
In memoriam Dane Rudhyar rises from enigmatic depths
to achieve a valedictory daybreak and resolution, and the development
of modes and phrases which borrow from Indian Raga is continued
with the gently lyrical In memoriam Pandit Patekar.
Peter Michael Hamel goes against the grain of avant-garde modernism
in these pieces, but while some contemporary music might in
the past have poured scorn on such tonal expressions, none of
this music can be criticised as being vapid new-age meandering.
Hamel has a fine ear for variation and resonance, and each work
goes beyond the creation of mere atmosphere by developing a
strong sense of structure and spatial movement, both harmonically
and thematically. The more intense pieces coupled with Messiaen,
Xenakis and Cage also explore resonance. In memoriam Olivier
Messiaen searches for and never quite finds resolution through
richly chromatic chords over extended bass pedal tones. With
In memoriam Iannis Xenakis we hear the architectural
blocks of the music exposed, forming shifting masses of questioning
sonority. The first to be written and shortest of the pieces,
In memoriam Alfred A. Tomatis, conjures the beginnings
of life from amorphous low rumblings which move without a break
into Miles Davis’ Milestone. The ‘book ends’ of Vom
Klang des Lebens are the two In memoriam John Cage pieces,
which are almost identical to each other and serve a similar
function as the Aria of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, initiating
and closing the cycle with spare and deceptive simplicity.
Peter Michael Hamel’s Vom Klang des Lebens is a fine
piece, and one which should be attractive to a wide audience.
Roger Woodward’s sensitive and beautifully nuanced playing is
met with an equally sophisticated recording, and this a disc
which deserves an honoured place in any good collection of piano
music.
Dominy Clements
see also review by
Jonathan Woolf
Roger Woodward (piano) 
