Album Review: Fallen Trees by Lubomyr Melnyk

Lubomyr Melnyk continues to produce exquisitely beautiful new classical work, earning an audience for his "continuous music" technique that grows wider with each release. This new effort, his latest for Erased Tapes, features contributions from other members of the label's roster. Vocalists Hatis Noit and David Allred and cellist Anne Müller add further emotional depth to Melnyk's already moving performance.   Melnyk is often described as the world's fastest pianist. He's recorded an astounding 19-plus notes per second, simultaneously ….

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That superficial talk of the speed of the piano-playing entirely misses the point is perfectly clear from this recording which derives from Melnyk's response to seeing felled trees during the course of a rail journey through a European forest. Contrasts across the recording seem to stress the pace of mechanical movement (the train, the cutting down) set against the strange dignity associated with the death of the naturally majestic. One of the most impressive tracks is "Barcarolle", named after a style of music based on the rhythms of Venetian gondolier folk song.

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Ukrainian continuous piano pioneer Lubomyr Melnyk may be turning 70 just before Christmas but that does not mean that his career is entering a largely irrelevant, nostalgia-fuelled twilight phase. In fact, somewhat bizarrely, Melnyk's career is only now reaching its apex. Having languished in relative obscurity for decades, Melnyk was brought to wider public attention in 2013 by Erased Tapes, the now ubiquitous modern classical label that is also home to the likes of A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Ólafur Arnalds, and Nils Frahm.

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