Danish-German, currently New York-based pianist Johannes Richter has shaped his own personal improvisational approach, informed by his studies as classical pianist, his experience as an improviser and a belief that the Human Being is to be heard in mistakes of beauty.
2 Pieces is his sophomore improvised solo piano album, following 13 Pieces from 2013, both released on the experimental Danish label Hiatus. It is a limited-edition of 80 vinyl albums (all with download code), only 25-minutes long, with an ascetic white cover and extremely limited information. Only the name of Richter, the title of the album and the length of the two pieces. Nothing else, as if saying that the music speaks louder than words.
The first untitled piece is an uncompromising and restless one, referencing Cecil Taylor complex improvised architecture. Richter sounds here as wrestling with the piano, hammering the keys in order to set a clear and focused course through the dense, resonating texture. The second untitled piece is a minimalist and quiet one, informed by Morton Feldman ideas about sounds floating “free from compositional rhetoric”, but here the sounds somehow attempt to cling at time to an elusive melodic vein.
Provocative and highly original.
Eyal Hareuveni
Johannes Richter (piano)
