Jürg Frey, Reinier van Houdt: Lieues d’Ombres

Anyone familiar with the Elsewhere label (or Edition Wandelweiser or Another Timbre...) will have frequently encountered Swiss composer and clarinetist Jürg Frey. In addition, those who regularly listen to Elsewhere will have heard much of Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt. Between them, Frey and van Houdt have now appeared on six of Elsewhere's twenty-three albums to date. Of those six, L'air, L'instant—deux pianos (2020) is the only previous album to feature the pair on the same album, with van Houdt plus fellow pianist Dante Boon playing two-piano versions of two Frey compositions. Now, on the three-disc album Lieues d'Ombres, van Houdt alone plays versions of seven Frey pieces, two of which are multi-part compositions. Incidentally, Elsewhere's last five releases have now included three double-disc and two triple-disc albums; this label does not do things by halves.

Frey has been quoted as saying, "If I were a pianist, I would play my music like Reinier would play it," so this album may be as near as we get to hearing Frey play his own compositions. Lieues d'Ombres comprises Frey compositions dating back as far as "Sam Lazaro Bros" from 1984 up to "Three Piano Pieces" from 2017-18, the latter being the only previously unreleased work. The album was recorded at The Muziekcentrum van de Omroep (MCO) in Hilversum in The Netherlands, from 16th to 18th July 2021, with the composer present. The order of the tracks on the three discs was determined by Frey. At forty-and-a-half-minutes, the opening track "La Présence, les silences" is the longest piece, while "Les tréfonds inexplorés des signes (28)" is the shortest at ninety-nine-seconds; the album's total playing time is three hours and seven minutes. Despite such different composition dates and durations, across the album's twenty tracks there is a remarkable consistency of style and mood.

If one did not know that Frey was a member of Wandelweiser—with many of his scores featuring in its score catalogue, dating back to 1984, "Sam Lazaro Brothers" being the first—the music on this album makes it all too obvious. Without it sounding affected or formulaic, piece after piece of Frey's allows plenty of space between notes so that listeners can savour them as they gradually fade away to silence. Throughout, van Houdt gets under the skin of each piece, making it breath and come alive. Just as, say, John Tilbury and Philip Thomas are recognised as definitive interpreters of Morton Feldman's piano music, so van Houdt must now be recognised as the interpreter of Frey's piano works. As Frey himself has said, "It's marvellous, a wonderful reading of the scores that so clearly realizes my intentions. And I feel so strongly how my music is connected with my being," In a nutshell, Lieues d'Ombres deserves to be considered a strong contender for one of the year's best. Whether or not it receives such an accolade, this album will be listened to and admired for many years to come. An absolute gem.