Recent publication - Yehoshua Lakner's Piano Variations Jüdische Allgemeine no. 11 - Berlin, May 23 2002
| Music-lovers with an ear for the unusual will thoroughly enjoy Yehoshua Lakner's CD - over and over again. Collected here are works from six decades with a distinctive quality of ease and clarity. Some of them were written when the Israeli-Swiss composer was only 22, like the first three little pieces, still slightly reminiscent of Bartok. Or "Cornerstones", now dedicated to his son Yahli - 19 contrapuntal studies both tranquil and tense. As the years pass, this musical idiom becomes increasingly abstract, but also more playful. "... pure, sounding structure, resulting from a playful attitude towards rules and sonic material..." as expressed by no less a person than the distinguished music critic Alfred Zimmerlin in the sleeve text.Born in Bratislava in 1924, Lakner completed his studies as an emigré at the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel-Aviv. Scholarships to the USA and Germany paved his way to Zurich, where he has lived since 1963. Until 1971 Lakner wrote all the incidental music to Maria von Ostfelden's celebrated productions at the Theater an der Winkelwiese. A CD of Lakner's music-collages accompanies Lars Müller Verlag's illustrated book about her. Lakner taught at the Zurich conservatory until the mid-eighties. Since then he has devoted all his energy and passion to computer music and his "audiovisual time-structures", music-inspired sequences of colour of overwhelming poetry and power. | ||
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Gabi Rosenberg
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| Yehoshua Lakner, Piano Works from Six decades, performed by Tomas Bächli and Petra Ronner; Guild Music Ltd. GMCD 7214 | ||