PASCAL DUSAPIN (b.1955): 7 Études for Piano.

Description: Dusapin's seven Études are 'concert studies' in the sense that they contain a great deal more than specific technical exercises, though each does remain within its own range of expression and type of technique. They, are in fact highly satisfying pieces of music, forming a nicely varied set, and Dusapin's idiom, though modern, is never less than thoroughly accessible. The composer's vocabulary is as usual one of extended, non-functional tonality, with an emphasis on octatonic scales and modal flavorings and a tendency to establish what sound like tonal centers through emphatic repetition. Not infrequently, especially in the more active études, one is strongly reminded of Messiaen, with the shade of Debussy not so very far in the background; static exercises in legato touch and tone have something of the detached, gnomic utterances of Satie about them. The accompanying hardcover 5 x 7 68-page booklet contains a portfolio of the composer's stylish black and white photography, largely high-contrast semi-abstract geometrical forms extracted from images of everyday objects - cityscapes, buildings, elements of landscape - and their shadows. Vanessa Wagner (piano).