Tamara Stefanovich: Nicolaou Etudes & Frames – Exhilarating listening

Cologne-based Cypriot composer Vassos Nicolaou, now in his early 50s, composed his series of Etudes for piano between 2008 and 2016. The most recent of these highly virtuosic pieces is titled Tamara, after Tamara Stefanovich, a brilliant advocate of Nicolaou’s work – many of the Etudes were either premiered by her or are dedicated to her.

She says the composer’s aural curiosity “often leads his listeners into a kind of delirium, albeit a superbly organised one”. The composer, whose detailed notes are illuminating, says the works are “about conflict, flashbacks, illusionary polyphony, delays, distorted canons and resonance”.

The trajectory and energy of the rapid-fire writing in No.1, Anodos, seem to project the music right off the top of the keyboard – the intended illusion is of polyphony from a single line. The thunderous clamour that opens No.13, Teso, brings to mind young hands when they discover the joys of noisy bass playing and the sustaining pedal.

Stefanovich can deliver notes as a kind of spray, a latter-day reconstruction of the virtuosic keyboard runs of the 19th century, now with all kinds of angles and irregular patterns built in, and as likely to spray chords around as single notes.

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Exhilarating listening for anyone enamoured of celebrated Etudes written at the close of the 20th century.