Recent Piano Works by Nicholas Chase

from the Amazon.com Web page for the recording being discussed

The title of the last of the three new albums released by Cold Blue Music yesterday is Tiny Thunder. This is the second Cold Blue album to present compositions by Nicholas Chase. The first was devoted entirely to the four-section work scored for electric violin and live electronics, entitled Bhajan.

Some readers may recall that this earlier piece was given the first performance following its world premiere in Los Angeles here in San Francisco at the Center for New Music. That “follow-up” concert took place on February 23, 2017. The performers were Robin Lorentz on electric violin and the composer on the electronics, the same performers that would subsequently appear on the Cold Blue release.

“Tiny Thunder” is the second of the two tracks on the new album. The title of the first is “Zuòwàng,” which is a solo composition, while “Tiny Thunder” was scored for four hands on a single piano keyboard. Only one pianist is listed on the album jacket, Bryan Pezzone; so it is likely that “Tiny Thunder” was recorded in a studio with Pezzone playing the second part while listening to the already-recorded first part.

For those curious about the title of the first track, zuowang is the name of a Taoist meditation technique. The first syllable can be translated as “take a seat,” while the second may be translated at “forget,” “overlook,” or “neglect.” One may thus interpret the phrase as a form of meditation that detaches mind from “worldly” perceptions.

In the absence of a score, I can only speculate that the setting for meditation is one in which the dampers are lifted for the duration of the composition, allowing superposition to encourage mental detachment. “Tiny Thunder” also sounds as if the dampers are kept lifted; but there seems to be more of a well-defined pulse around which the individual phrases unfold. There is also a sense that, because “Tiny Thunder” is about eight minutes longer than “Zuòwàng,” the attentive listener may be inclined to “parse” the listening experience into a sequence of episodes.

Having recently experienced two of the three next@90 programs of new choreography performed by the San Francisco Ballet, I was struck by the fact that Pezzone’s résumé includes performing for the Joffrey Ballet. Mind you, it would probably be a challenge to create choreography for either “Zuòwàng” or “Tiny Thunder.” However, since it is likely that most listeners will approach the Chase’s new album as an “individual listening” experience, the idea of offering a “shared experience” through choreography strikes me as a fascinating challenge.