New Bärtsch Album Defies Genre Classification

Nik Bärtsch at the piano keyboard (courtesy of Crossover Media)

This Friday ECM will release what appears to be the first solo album recorded by Swiss pianist and composer Nik Bärtsch. Bärtsch appears to have been interested in, if not influenced by, the work of composers such as John Cage, Steve Reich, and Morton Feldman. However, he has been more “fluid” in his own approach to genre. He has exercised that fluidity through his work with at least two bands, Ronin and Mobile. The new album is simply entitled Entendre, the French word for the verb “listen;” but it is unclear how, in this solo setting, he sees the link between performing and listening. As is usually the case, Amazon.com is currently taking pre-orders for this new release.

The album consists of only six tracks, five of which bear the title “Modul.” (The title of the final track is “Déja-vu, Vienna.”) Bärtsch treats his “Modul” pieces as templates, rather than fixed and final compositions. He said the following about the tracks he recorded:

My touch in the solo music is not primarily a “jazz” attack on the piano. It’s between things. Between chamber music, solo playing in the classical tradition, more modern minimal music, and the “groove” aspect.

This strikes me as the sort of thing that prompts the ever-logical Mister Spock to raise his eyebrow. While I appreciate the spirit behind Bärtsch’s remarks, I find myself perplexed when it comes to what he expects from me as a listener. This, of course, presumes that he expects anything from a listener or if each “Modul” is just his way of forging what might be called a “path of performance.”

Having now listened to this album several times, I have to confess that I do not find myself a particularly sympathetic listener. My own perspective on “invention” goes back at least as far as Johann Sebastian Bach and has charged forward in both “classical” and “jazz” genres all the way up to the prodigious inventiveness of pianists such as Fred Hersch. If I have not yet found a place for Bärtsch on my personal “map,” I am still willing to defend boldly his right to do with his “Modul” performances what he wishes!