Piano Solo
SKU:
IS.PN7295EM
Composed
by Guy Van Nueten.
Keyboards - Piano.
Metropolis Music
Publishers #PN7295EM.
Published by Metropolis
Music Publishers
(IS.PN7295EM).
ISBN
9790365072958.
Ligh
t the fire, James.
We’ll take our
digestive by the
crackling of the hearth.
Such were the thoughts
that came to mind as I
started listening to Guy
Van Nueten’s new
record. Because, yes,
there is a certain
aristocracy to this
music. There’s the
feeling of autumn and you
immediately long to warm
yourself on the sounds
that issue from Van
Nueten's bony fingers.
But it could just as well
be a car ride through
soft rain at nightfall,
where trees become
freakish phantoms, and
here and there a villa
looms like a light
beacon. Pacman is a
record that makes you
hunt for images, films
you have seen before,
feelings you have known
and wish to relive, like
a somewhat forbidden
fruit, a secret pleasure.
Melancholy? Absolutely. A
vague sadness to make a
person purr like a
contented cat? Certainly.
Yet at the same time, Van
Nueten is cunning. While
ensuring that his music
pleases you, at the end
of some compositions
he’ll suddenly
come up with a theme that
he’ll stop
abruptly, so that the
notes remain hanging like
snapshots of aerial
acrobats in action. It is
also investigative music
as if Guy himself does
not wish to know just
where he will finish up.
There is a stubbornness
to it, an elegant fight
perhaps between composer
and pianist. It pursues
you – exactly like
a Pacman, in fact,
chomping away at digital
pieces of your heart. Yet
it never seems to
dissolve into thin air:
time and again, right
from the first listen, he
makes you long to hear
more. It is music that
should protect a person
like a secret, like an
illegal fire in a forest
that warms your hands and
fills your head with
dreams. It smells like
cedar, this piano music.
Or like a nice cigar
offered to you by the
imaginary James, who
whispers: The fire is
crackling, sir. Just as
you like it. At which
point the enchantment
begins all over
again.