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DCD34352-CD
£19.99
Centred on Ravel’s luminous Miroirs, this striking solo album from Irish pianist-composer Seán Morgan-Rooney unfolds as a sequence of reflections on nature, memory and self-perception. Ravel’s five finely etched character pieces are interwoven with music by Berio, Stravinsky and Eötvös, alongside Morgan-Rooney’s own electroacoustic miniatures, tracing a journey through air, fire, earth and water – the elemental framework subtly encoded in the album’s title.
The result is at once intimate and expansive: piano sonorities dissolve into electronics, familiar masterpieces open onto new perspectives, and moments of virtuosity give way to stillness and resonance. Ahead of his forthcoming duo recording with mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean, this deeply personal solo project reveals Morgan-Rooney as both interpreter and creator, inviting the listener into a space where reflection becomes transformation.
'Delphian is doing a fine trade in concept albums. Among the latest is Irish pianist-composer Seán Morgan-Rooney’s A Few Reflect the Heart, centred on Ravel’s five coruscating Miroirs, spread within a personally reflective sequence of Morgan-Rooney’s own works - he calls them “element pieces“ representing air, fire, earth and water - and sympathetic examples by Berio, Stravinsky and Péter Eötvös. The Ravel performances are exquisite, wistfully tantalising. A scene-setting electroacoustic Overture by Morgan-Rooney - snatches of Ravel moodily integrated within an electronic soundscape - establishes the pianist’s composer signature. Pneumaplume casts an ethereal airborne spell; Wavephile a watery lugubriousness in the wake of Berio's Wasserklavier; Ignis Beat a fiery unpredictability that segues explosively into Stravinsky’s The Firebird. Meanwhile Earth-tether-ether makes a mystically profound follow-up to Ravel’s sonorous La vallée des cloches. All of this is imaginatively-themed and quirky to boot.'
'No pianist can ignore Maurice Ravel’s five-part cycle Miroirs (Mirrors). The young Irish pianist and composer Seán Morgan-Rooney goes one step further. He has written five companion pieces to go with it: music that mirrors, comments on and complements Miroirs. Central to this are the four elements that appear in Ravel’s cycle: earth, water, fire and air.
Morgan-Rooney has created a clever album. He plays Miroirs beautifully, conjuring up the swarm of moths in ‘Noctuelles’ with great finesse. In his own pieces, he adds electronics. Not avant-garde, but fascinating, ranging from Ravelian melodies to a tight beat.
The third layer features works by Stravinsky, Berio and Eötvös. Berio’s neo-Baroque Wasserklavier is even heard twice: sparkling on the piano and deep and muffled on the synthesiser. Plenty of imagination from the Irish Amsterdammer Morgan-Rooney.'
Collections: All Releases, New Releases, Piano
Category: Few, Heart, Piano, Seán Morgan-Rooney
