Pizzicato reviews Ivan Ilić’s THE TRANSCENDENTALIST

An hour of calm…

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.

Translated from the German by Wendy Pfeifer.

Online review (German language)

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