Nox is the Latin word for night. It’s also the name of the new solo album from Pianist Hannes Minnaar on the Challenge Classics label, his first in four years. Nox features one of the young generation’s leading pianists playing the music of Robert Schumann’s Nachtstücke, Robert Zuidam’s Nox, and Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit in Stereo and Multichannel DSD 64.
In the world of art, the night of Schumann’s Nachtstücke, Robert Zuidam’s Nox and Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit creaks open its doors like a haunted castle for romantic poets and composers. Night-time visions became the foundations of a pre-Freudian subconscious in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Some of the great writers discovered their dreams and anxieties, seeing themselves and the magic of imagination in the mirror of fantasy.
It was no coincidence that their work provided intellectual sustenance for Robert Schumann (1810-1856), who also had a literary gift. His earliest works, which were entirely for piano up until his Nachtstücke, Op. 23 (1839), originated in psychological impressions gained from literature. Schumann wrote to his beloved, Clara Wieck, that the work stemmed from a premonition. During the composition, he kept seeing visions of funeral processions, “Coffins and miserable, despairing people”. His instincts had not deceived him: on completing the work, with tears in his eyes, he heard that his brother Eduard was on his deathbed. Listening to the Nachtstücke again and knowing this, one can hear the shadows falling over light and life, depicted by the pianist’s defeated irony. For Dutch composer Robert Zuidam (b. 1964), the night is the night of toil. Nox (2020) is a night owl’s ode to the hours of his creativity.
Ravel had done everything he could in his piano cycles Jeux d’eau (1901) and Miroirs (1905) towards de-romanticizing the 19th Century character sketch, but he took a major step forward in Gaspard as regards both virtuosity and idiom. His aim was to produce something that was even more difficult to play than Balakirev’s notorious Islamey. Gaspard is a deranged combination of abstract pianistic hyper-virtuosity with derailed eruptions of waltzes, peppered with raging, flamenco-style note repetitions, and unplayable cascades of clusters of seconds, betraying the signature of Ravel’s exceptionally dexterous thumbs.
But Gaspard is a symphonic poem for piano. The work is subtitled Trois Poèmes pour piano d’après Aloysius Bertrand, and these poems are also printed out in full in the score. They are drawn from the collection of prose poems entitled Gaspard de la Nuit, Fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot, which were published in 1842. The infernal degree of difficulty is a metaphor for their contents; as Ravel himself stressed in one of his letters, Gaspard is in fact the devil.
Hannes Minnaar, Piano
Tracklist
Please note that the below previews are loaded as 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.Total time: 01:15:56
Additional information
| Label | |
|---|---|
| SKU | CC72853 |
| Qualities | |
| Channels | 2ch Stereo, 5 Channel Surround Sound, 2ch Stereo & 5ch Surround |
| Artists | |
| Composers | |
| Genres | |
| Cables | Siltech Mono-Crystal cabling |
| Digital Converters | dCS and Merging Technologies |
| Editing Software | Pyramix, Merging Technologies |
| Mastering Engineer | Bert van der Wolf |
| Instruments | |
| Original Recording Format | |
| Producer | Bert van der Wolf |
| Recording Engineer | Bert van der Wolf |
| Recording location | MCO Hilversum, The Netherlands (June 2020) |
| Recording Type & Bit Rate | DSD 64 |
| Release Date | October 9, 2020 |
Press reviews
Positive Feedback
Hannes Minnaar (b.1984) is a pianist to keep one’s ears on. He is is consistently described by critics as able to convey musical essence in all its purity, and I’ve become convinced this is true.
…this is a recital of beautiful, insightful, translucent musicianship. I set aside the story the music may be written around to let the music simply speak for itself. And Minnaar serves as an excellent guide, never inserting himself but instead playing entirely in service to the music. His interpretations have a depth that I find most rewarding, and he plays with a degree of humility that allows the music to flow without one becoming acutely more aware of the performer than the composer.
Robert Zuidam’s “Nox” is a nice complement following the Schumann. Minnaar has programmed this album well, in my opinion, for here we have a thoroughly modern, yet tonal, work that contrasts but does not clash with the other works. Inclusion of contemporary works with more well known repertoire is a programming choice I highly commend.
Again in this recording, Minnaar is playing on the Chris Maene Straight Strung Concert Grand (see above) and achieving superlative results from it’s very clean clear sound. The bass range of this piano is particularly impressive—very deep, very resonant, but with a clarity I don’t hear with many other pianos. Nothing ever gets “muddy.” Bert van der Wolf’s recording is, yet again, a paragon of clarity and transparency. Bravo!
HR Audio.Net
For young talent, media attention is an essential element. They fully deserve it. But more doesn’t necessarily mean better. I don’t know how extensive his media presentation has been compared to other pianists on his home turf but based on what I have heard, Hannes Minnaar tops my list of the younger generation in The Netherlands. He is not just very good, he is more, he has that indefinable artistic feeling, going well beyond mere technical mastery. Be it in the role of accompanist, concert soloist, or sitting alone at the Grand, each time he adapts himself as a chameleon to the task at hand.
This recital is about an astonishing and colorful combination of ‘night music’, including a brand-new piece (2020) by the Dutch composer, Robert Zuidam, entitled Nox (night), which is also the title of this album, and – not mentioned on the cover – a ‘good night’ bonus track from Leoš Janáček. I must admit that I had never heard of Robert Zuidam (though regular Tanglewood visitors may). Thoroughly modern, without being eccentrically shocking, and thoroughly interesting. His ‘Nox’ is a discovery (and a clear invitation to visit Zuidam’s website to find out more). It is carefully placed in between Schumann’s ‘Nachtstücke’ and Ravel’s ‘Gaspard de la Nuit’.
Zuidam’s new composition ‘Nox’, consisting of 5 Nocturnes spanning around 25 minutes was, so I understand, written with Minnaar in mind and I cannot but agree that Zuidam could not have wished for anyone better. Hannes hits the right mood in all 5 of this major work, including the one remembering the great, modern Dutch musician/composer/conductor, Reinbert de Leeuw. What personally struck me is the so real-life scored second Nocturne ‘Insomnia’, in which he exposed with unadorned and dead-sharp precision ‘the feeling that you cannot sleep, which makes you so irritated that it prevents you from falling asleep’. With which I’d also like to say that Robert Zuidam is an extraordinarily gifted composer deserving wider recognition than he already enjoys (Tanglewood). Believe me, this is impressive.
But before you go, please note that Hannes Minnaar plays on his favorite Chris Maene Straight Strung Concert Grand, guaranteeing a warm and noble tone and that the surround sound on this recording is as perfect as Bert van der Wolf of Northstar Recording can make it for us, discerning music lovers of the best available quality.
Rating: Performance and Multichannel DSD Sonics – 5 out of 5 Stars.
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