HENNING SCHMIEDT
Klavierraum
FLAU06
Flau 2008
15 Tracks.  61mins01secs

As his wife’s belly bloomed, pianist Henning Schmiedt similarly filled her room with chirruping meander-melodies that alternated with low-end frequencies like the earth’s crust fissuring and climaxing with seesawing hypno-patterns.

Schmiedt is an accomplished pianist, composer, and arranger, having studied music in Rostock, and having since scored works for several films and theatre productions. This plainly reveals itself in his smooth, articulate playing, which is capable both of a communicative directness and a technical finesse.  Each piece therefore has a dramatic and informed sense of how to build tension and control it through measured release.

The result is not simply a series of comely piano vignettes, but an engaging and polytextural music, motion based but also subtly layered for depth, contrast and unexpected disclosures.  Schmiedt sprays showers of notes and small electronic sounds before slowing to a quieter pace.  In later tracks, he then gradually increases the speed, shaping the album like an inverted bell curve.  Klavierraum comes in the wake of several piano albums from the likes of Goldmund and Peter Broderick, but the album dwells well outside anything that might be considered a fashion.  The music here stands on its own.

3.7/5

Henning Schmiedt | Flau
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