The Transcendentalist
Ivan IlicHeresy Records 015 (heresyrecords.com)
When it comes to new music the average music lover, including myself, is in an unknown territory (or downright ignorant) and that can provoke hostility and aversion at times. This new disc by Ivan Ilic, a distinguished American pianist of Serbian descent, does an immeasurable service to smoothen the road to acceptance by the back door, so to speak.
It’s a masterstroke to devise a program with the likes of Cage, Feldman or Wollschleger by tracing them backwards to “fall on branches descending from Frédéric Chopin.” It’s also all the more surprising – says Mr. Ilic – that Scriabin, one of the greatest innovators in the early 20th century, took Chopin as a point of departure. And this is the point at which this remarkable journey begins.
Scriabin’s Prelude Op.16, No.1 indeed sounds a bit like a Chopin Nocturne with a charming little melody developed nicely and it’s over in two minutes. Fine… everyone is happy about that, but our pianist now presents an early piece by John Cage, Dream (1948), and we immediately sense the relationship to Scriabin. The hesitant fragments moving at an even pace like moving in and out of our subconscious, laying out slowly a wonderful oriental landscape, sometimes interrupted by deep and disturbing chords… yes, indeed, we feel the connection, but also experience the departure into a new world with a mesmerizing, hypnotic effect.
“Transcendental meditation?” The phrase here takes on a new meaning under the magic hands of Ilic who is guaranteed to hypnotize you like no other into the mysteries of another universe, but at the same time plays Scriabin’s gorgeous D-flat major Prelude Op.31, No.1 so beautifully that you can perhaps endure the vicissitudes of this here universe.
