2023-05-22 11:56:49
Reflections: Seven Neoclassical Piano Pieces, 2019 by Sufjan Stevens commissioned by the Houston Ballett written for two pianos (which for this studio recording now have Timo Andres and Conor Hanick at the keys) and eleven dancers.
„I’m constantly thinking about bodies moving through space when I’m writing for ballet – that is what has informed this music, first and foremost“ tells Sufjan Stevens too Reflectionsafter Year of the Rabbit (2012) Everywhere We Go (2014), In the Countenance of Kings (2016), The Decalogue (2017) and Principia (2019) a renewed collaboration with choreographer Justin Peck – and perhaps at least partially explains the simply grandiose (and in case of doubt, of course, rounding up in the final scoring) title And I Shall Come To You Like A Stormtrooper In Drag Serving Imperial Realness.
That Reflections a reflection on “energy, light and duality“, but also provides what is possibly a better keyword: Stevens’ collaborations are subjectively viewed from a very fickle quality starting with a mild polarization – between Aporia and A Beginner‘s Mind there is more than just a year difference.
Also Reflections now carries a certain ambivalence, because the virtuosic, joyful playing of the piano is by no means bad – not at any second of its entertaining 30 minutes of playing time. And the terse moments in which quintessential Stevens melodies emerge in their lovable beauty are heart-breaking, even if they remain so fleeting, while all around is a healthy, but also perpetually somewhat generic, level of drama, melancholy and Pomp is raging and, strictly speaking, the pieces differ at most minimally.
Nevertheless, the album actually only runs in a pleasant way on the side, consumed passively and without great emotions as a tasteful, aesthetic wallpaper. That’s why it’s almost more exciting to imagine how Stevens’ upcoming collaboration with Peck will turn out – a dance theater adaptation by some Illinois-Songs.
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