For anyone following the career of the brilliant pianist Michael Wollny news this week that a new solo piano album Mondenkind ['Moonchild'], his first in the solo idiom, is to be released in late-September, is something to savour.
Inspired by the moon landing of 1969 the album was recorded during lockdown. Says Wollny: "The situation was surreal. I spent two days in the large live room in Berlin's Teldex Studio. It was the first time in a very long time that I had been alone and without fellow musicians in a studio. On the way to the recordings I would be alone in a car, travelling through the empty city, and in the evening I would walk back to my empty hotel. Not only were there no other guests, there were no hotel staff either. I was absolutely alone with myself and with the music, and the ideas that surfaced in this situation went far beyond the original concept of the album.''
Half the pieces on the ACT release are by Wollny, the remainder by Tori Amos, the Toronto band Timber Timbre, Alban Berg and Rudolf Hindemith, Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner and Nico Muhly. Michael Wollny photo: ACT.
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