On her third imaginatively conceived and sensitively interpreted album for ECM, Russian pianist Anna Gourari explores musical interrelationships and influences that extend far beyond music itself. Three contemporary suites take center stage: Alfred Schnittke's "Five Aphorisms" (1990) draws inspiration from the poems of his friend Joseph Brodsky. Rodion Shchedrin's "Diary – Seven Pieces" (2002), dedicated to Gourari and inspired by her playing, reflects the life of a composer and pianist. Wolfgang Rihm's series of funeral music, "Dialogue" (1999), honors the musicologists Alfred Schlee and Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, the conductor Paul Sacher, and the art sociologist Hermann Wiesler. Interspersed between these cycles are two miniatures by Giya Kancheli, taken from theater and film music, and Arvo Pärt's early variations in the tintinnabuli style for the healing of Arinushka (1977). The program is framed by Bach's arrangements of slow movements by Antonio Vivaldi and Alessandro Marcello: "Anna Gourari makes these slow Bach movements our own," notes Paul Griffiths in the booklet. "And the more recent works are appreciated and brought to life."
