Ernesto Diaz-Infante – “Solus” – PAX Recordings PR90250. Ermesto Diaz-Infante, piano. Released 2000. Duration: 46:04.
Distribution: northcountry@cadencebuilding.com
The piano literature is vast, huge, enormous, especially if you look at it historically and across the styles. The piano is the instrument of instruments. To come up with something that will startle you, or at all stand out from the mass of recordings, would seem hard, if not on the verge of the impossible. Yet it can be done, and seemingly with ease, as Ernesto Diaz-Infante plainly demonstrates on his new CD “Solus” from the California-based Pax Recordings.
On hearing this music the first time other composers and pianists and their works do come to mind, if only for comparison, like Swedish pianist/composer Staffan Björklund and his CD “Dialogues pour piano seul” on Nosag CD 044, or even Terry Riley and some of his piano improvisations, like passages on “The Harp of New Albion” on Celestial Harmonies, CEL 018/19. However, Ernesto Diaz-Infante appears in his very own right. This CD with thirteen complex and intricate piano improvisations constitutes a true delight for mind and soul alike. Listening is like studying a Persian rug, or maybe like lying flat on your stomach on one of those rugs, smelling the textile, or why not like rolling over and, lying on your back, watching the summer clouds drift in the breeze over the flatlands on the outskirts of Shiraz, with a cup of strong black tea within easy reach…
György Ligeti’s “Etudes” do come up too, in the neighborhood of Diaz-Infante’s, especially in their intellectual aspect, and also, of course, Ligeti’s favorite Conlon Nancarrow and his spectacular and highly praised “Studies for Player Piano” on Wergo. You cannot ignore the influence of Pierre Boulez and his “Sonates pour piano” in this context either.
Needless to say, this shows that Diaz-Infante belongs in a select group of musical personalities.
These thirteen improvisations, all in the time bracket between 1:50 and 6:00, are highly individual, while they’re all similar in their tendency to fall forward in a seemingly – yes, seemingly – haphazard way, like they’re sort of tripping over themselves in a joyous tour-de-force of pianistic playfulness, at times in cascades of ivory, like the tick-like movements of an intoxicated Pinocchio. This “falling” is similar, though, to the satellites in orbit, falling their way around Earth. It works! Sometimes little pauses are inserted, which make the impression of this music even more meditative and eastern in all its cow-dust-hour transparency and intimacy. The music borders on the idiom of some modern jazz improvisations, but still not - and I would not try to brand it, since that is impossible and a stupid waste of time. This is the music of Ernesto Diaz-Infante, and it’s darn good. It’s good art – that’s what it is; good art! Enjoy! Explore and enjoy!
