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One of my favorite music moments is in the mellow part of Chopin's
"Fantasie Impromptu". The melody takes a minor turn and
then there's a bouncy major part that jumps up and hangs on a note
for just a half second before dripping down with a beautiful arpeggiated
chord. It's the slight pause before that chord that is the moment
I particularly love, as it really gives just the right setup to
what comes after it. For a brief moment, the world stops, time stops
and the anticipation is as tangible as anything you might taste
or touch. And then that chord drips down and ohhh, all is perfect
with the universe.
There are several moments of that type on CS Bezas' album, A Time
for Ana. I'm not sure that any of them quite match the effect of
the "Fantasie Impromptu" pause for me, but many are similar
in nature and evoke powerful reactions of their own for their musical
beauty. Highlights include "Sometimes Yes, Sometimes No",
which has a "Frere Jacques" kind of melody to it; the
title track, which balances nicely between sadness and something
more hopeful; "Adam-ondi-Ahman", which has exquisite melody
and beauty throughout and paints a picture approaching divine elegance;
and "New Arrival", a dynamic anthemic number that sweetly
trades between tinkling higher register melody and thicker, lower
chords.
The press release for the album calls the style "new age piano
minimalism", and while that is still somewhat inadequate and
limiting as a description (as many genre labels are), it does give
a sense of what the music is like, particularly with "minimalism"
meaning "every note counts". There may be no lyrics on
A Time for Ana, but it is nonetheless very "lyrical",
with careful attention payed to every note and phrase. I was going
to say that this kind of music would work well as the background
for guided imagery, but then again, it seems to conjure imagery
pretty well on its own. Whether that imagery constitutes a three-dimensional
representation of the Pythagorean theorom on top of a stack of pancakes
or just a "duckie" may depend on your state of mind, but
something should spring up in your imagination. What's particularly
nice about the album is that while a general description of "mellow
piano instrumentals" would essentially be very accurate, there
is still quite a bit of dynamics within the general 'mellowness'
of the material. This album can be nice played in the background,
but it is also very much something to be listened closely to and
even wrestled with.
Apparently A Time for Ana is meant to honor children whose time
of peace is yet to come. I can certainly imagine this music being
used in healing, whether spiritually, emotionally or physically,
and touching souls of all ages.
**** - 4 stars
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Eric
Endres
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