The Seashore and Valley of Silence are meant as reverences to the entirely improvised pieces that I recorded respectively on the CD Beyond The Ocean, while Una Corda Song was an improvisation (played with the soft pedal) that I initially recorded at home on the first day of the 4th lockdown in Austria on November 22, 2021. For these Meditations I used only the first notes/initial patterns of the original pieces to start the improvisation. The theme of La Forza Del Destino was for many years only known to me as the 1980’s soundtrack of the French movie “Manon Des Sources”, until I realized while at the opera in Innsbruck where this theme actually came from…
Septembre is my first attempt to arrange a song from the French Chanson, after having heard its beautiful version on Alexandre Tharaud’s CD Barbara. My Story is my tribute to Bill Evans, a piece that I have played in some of my concerts over the last years, and for Evans’ anniversary year of 2020, I worked on a new version in which I am quoting more directly some patterns of Evans’ Your Story.
Once Upon A Summertime has a very personal meaning to me, since in my childhood I was listening repeatedly to its poignant version by Miles Davis and Gil Evans in Quiet Nights. The extension Whispering Your Name is inspired by the song Yesterday I Heard The Rain that I discovered recently in Tony Bennett’s version on his album Duets.
I am particularly grateful for the music of Yaron Herman who made me appreciate the beauty of Hatikva through his wonderful interpretations. The combined improvisation on Hatikva and Schindler’s List is dedicated to the memory of my grand father Lajzer Borek, who died in Sobibor extermination camp during the Shoah.
When I recorded the radio broadcast of Peace Piece on my cassette recorder, more than 35 years ago, it sounded like B (and not in C as the original actually is), and that’s why I have been playing it in B since then…
Olivier Messiaen had a significant influence on my musical career as classical composer and my first compositions for piano and more recent contemporary works for cello or clarinet were very much influenced by Messiaen’s harmony, in particular by his mode 2. Cloches Sur Le Lac, La Vallée Des Torrents and La Grotte De Cristal (the latter being improvised and recorded in multi track mode) are using exclusively this 2nd mode (corresponding to the tone-semitone/tone-semitone scale), allowing to evolve freely between the implicitly included minor and major tonalities, and offering in my view a fascinating harmonic environment, somewhere between classical and jazz musical languages.
Among the most moving moments of these two days of recording were definitely the acts of “instant composing” that materialized through the spontaneous Improvisations in E, G, F# and C. As I used to do in some concerts, I had asked for a tonality to start, and it became E major (thanks to Gérard!). For Tears, I had only a pattern of the first notes from Sanglots by Francis Poulenc in mind.
It Happened In June was the last completely improvised piece I played at La Buissonne (at the end of the 2nd day), and I will never forget the emotions that overwhelmed me while playing, in a feeling of perfect flow and harmony…
Eternity was the last track on my first home recordings CD in 1990 (with its final fade out on the ostinato created in the studio), and therefore the improvisation on Eternity (including this time a “natural” fade out) had to be somehow the last piece of this CD…
So that now the circle is complete…
Michael Borek, June 2022