By mcewin
30-Mar-2010

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This Albany album revisits "The Waltz Project", released by Nonesuch on vinyl in the transitional days of the early 1980's, and never to my knowledge available on CD. Then as now, it's an eclectic collection of pieces in 3/4 [always there, sometimes you have to train your ear] by some of the leading composers of the 20th century, and now the 21st, all played by Eric Moe.

Many of the contributors are well-known: Helps, Imbrie, Wuorinen, Tower, Sessions, Glass, Babbit, Harrison, Thomson: alas John Cage!]. The new release is personally nostalgic: I bought the original at a time when I was contentiously trying to 'like' modern music: the list included several of the above. Now I listen and wonder, what was not to like? and enjoy my later [Gordon] and new [Cornicello] and ongoing discoveries.

Highly recommended for fans of modern piano.

Grammarians will debate whether Philip Glass has written a Waltz about Modern Love, or a Love Waltz that is Modern, but will have no doubt that Cornicello has indeed written a Post-Modern Waltz.
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