“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”.
“…a remarkable journey… ”
“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 Prelude Opus 31 no 3 so beautifully that you can perhaps endure the vicissitudes of this here universe.”
Catherine Buser of RTSSwiss Radio – Espace 2 selected Ivan Ilić’s THE TRANSCENDENTALIST as the “Coup de Coeur” (Top Choice) on her De 6 à 7 show which aired on October 10.
“It is absolutely incredible how close some of Scriabin’s pieces come to the musical worlds of Morton Feldman and John Cage. Ivan Ilić, who studied with the great François-René Duchâble, proves to be an outstanding performer with a moving personal touch. A thoroughly interesting album.”
“Ilić makes his case with unfaltering poise; and if you feel that his offerings of works by John Cage, Scott Wollschleger and Morton Feldman hardly reach a sense of the transcendental in the same sense as, say, Fauré’s late song-cycle L’horizon chimérique (literally ‘the mystical, transcendental beyond’), his theory, one that remembers the endless repetitions of Satie’s Vexations, finally leads to silence, the negation of sound itself. Ilić is well recorded and will prompt even the most enterprising musicians to think again.”
Another review for Ivan Ilic’s THE TRANSCENDENTALIST, this time from The Netherlands and the Opus Klassiek website.
“What we are treated to is the most varying sound juxtapositions, interpretive finesse and a fairy tale-like interplay between dream and zest. Aren’t there any brushes with extreme contrasts? Certainly, but only in a purely expressive sense, a poetic path which shows that each detail has been contemplated, in conjunction with an astounding spontaneity.”
“To my feeling a true interpreter can’t do a better job proving himself than in this rich juxtaposition of miniatures, in which a barely perceptible rubato, or the slightest dynamic gradation, can make the difference between night and day.”
Kirk McElhearn of MusicWeb International reviews THE TRANSCENDENTALIST by Ivan Ilić.
“This is, therefore, a recital collection of a variety of pieces that are slow, languid, thoughtful and peaceful. The short Scriabin works are all of the type that recall Satie, or Debussy; simple, subtle, yet moving works that create miniature sound-worlds.”
“Themes come and go, return and fade, creating a sound-world full of questions, rather than resolving and making statements. Ilić plays this work much shorter than most pianists – the three other versions I have of Palais de Mari run from 25 to 29 minutes – but the sound he gets from his Steinway D is rich and complex.”
“Scott Wollschleger’s Music Without Metaphor also has this same feel, with a stark Feldmanesque sound. His piece is a fascinating exploration of simple melodic fragments played seemingly without rhythm. In the hands of Feldman, this could go on for an hour, but Wollschleger stops at less than seven minutes.”
“This should appeal strongly to those who want a piano disc to make them think.”
“Ivan Ilić is a singular pianist. A mathematician, a musician to the tips of his fingernails, occasionally an actor, he is as profound as he is multifaceted, mischievous and full of surprises.”
“Ivan Ilić takes us back to the spiritual sense of the word: as in meditation, it is mainly an introspective path leading to a sort of illumination where we focus on and are absorbed in each sound, each silence, each interstice and the absolute present.”
“Pianist, Ivan Ilić, gives a tremendously cohesive recital of Scriabin, Cage, Wollschleger and Feldman that surprises and enlightens at every turn on a new release from Heresy Records.”
“This is a tremendously cohesive recital that surprises and enlightens at every turn. I would encourage people to get this disc, not only for Ilić’s fine performances but to challenge their ideas on modern music.”
“In addition to an extract from Emerson’s lecture on The Transcendentalist, there are notes on each composer, a note by Eric Fraad on the connections made between the featured composers and notes by the pianist on the music. The recording made at the Salle Cortot, Paris is excellent.”
The Transcendentalist; Alexander Scriabin: Préludes op. 11/21, 15/4, 16/1, 31/1, 39/3, Guirlandes op. 73/1, Rêverie op. 49/3, Poème languide op. 52/3; John Cage: Dream, In a Landscape; Scott Wollschleger: Music without Metaphor; Morton Feldman: Palais de Mari; Ivan Ilic, Klavier; 1 CD Heresy 015; 11/13 (64’08) – Review by Remy Franck, 9 July 2014.
Finding calm, descending, dreaming, floating away… This CD guides the listener into a world of calm and thus confronts us with a musical cosmos from which the essential power of mystery arises, and, for those who are ready, even a mythical journey to the Divine, with the help of music. The piano casts out a few stars here and there, but mostly flows, not to lull us, but to ask us questions. The music that we hear isn’t cheerful, it is an acoustic world that plumbs the depths; it doesn’t overlook the darkness, and also shows us the void with gentle hope.
Musically the boundaries fall between Alexander Scriabin and John Cage, between Scott Wollschleger and Morton Feldman. One almost doesn’t perceive the transitions between the pieces. This unification is impossible to ignore, and you become harshly aware of it when Ivan Ilić releases you back into reality after a good hour of music, even if it was all only deception, an illusion, a substitute.
You can make this shrine of calm a part of your life, but it would only achieve its full meaning if you were to perish after listening to the music. Then to really use the power that speaks from the shrine, this Ilić-CD is made nearly impossible for us by the world we live in. Many people wouldn’t like something like it anyway. A short escape is enough for them. One such as this [escape], here, and many other different ones as well. Our culture is unparalleled in the offering of substitutes. But that shouldn’t prevent us from recommending this fantastic journey, because Ivan Ilić succeeds in filling out the music of calm, in proclaiming a message, in creating a link between the world we come from, and the one we will one day return to, which are separated only by our own dance of life.
Ivan Ilic’s superbly played, inspiring program with calm and dreamful music provides the link between the world which we come from and the same world which we will enter again, one day. This world is just broken apart by our own dance of life.
“Last comes Morton Feldman’s 22-minute Palais de Mari, whose leisurely hypnotic expansiveness seems both at the opposite pole to the terse dimensions of Scriabin’s hyper-expressive musical statements and, on a spiritual level, strangely close to them. Not many classical releases combine a genuinely searching musical experience with an effective antidote to a frazzling day at the office. This one fascinatingly does.”
