Elmar Schrammel (piano) Wergo WER 6737 2 ***

French composer Luc Ferrari (1929-2005) came to regard his musical pieces as a form of anecdote. His piano music certainly tells of the time it was written. The works from the 1950s – Suite hétéroclite(composed, apparently, on a transatlantic voyage, travelling cargo to visit Edgard Varèse), Antisonate, Sonatine Elyb(a title Ferrari was unable to explain) and Visage I– are hard-edged, mostly serial. The mid-1980s Collection of small pieces, or 36 enfilades for piano and tape (Ferrari was at one time director of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales) is altogether more engaging, in a whimsical, Satie-like way. The pieces encompass sounds of nature, spoken words, glaringly obvious musical quotations and some mad pianola moments à la George Antheil. Two excerpts from Fragments d'un journal intime(1980-82) have a spur-of-the moment air. wergo.de