FABIAN PANISELLO (b.1963): Estudios for Piano, Notebooks 1 & 2 for Piano, GYÖRGY LIGETI (1923-2006): Études for Piano, Books Nos. 1-3.

Description: Panisello's studies conform more to the original intent of works in this genre, in exploring specific technical requirements, than the celebrated Ligeti pieces. The first four studies employ various fragments of the chromatic scale in music requiring clockwork precision (the third suggests player-piano composition textures, like those of Nancarrow), with the third concentrating on matters of touch, attack and release. The rhythmically obstinate fifth leaps about in irregular patterns, while the sixth combines elements of the preceding pieces in a more fluid structure. The seventh and ninth were in another sense 'studies', resulting from the composer's work on an orchestral piece using an unstable irregular 'aksak' rhythm typical of Turkish and Balkan music. They continue the trend of the sixth in incorporating technical devices explored in isolation in the earlier studies, and denser textures. The Ligeti works, of course, represent a pinnacle of 20th-century étude-as-character-piece tradition from Debussy through Sorabji, and need no further recommendation. Dimitri Vassilakis (piano).