There is nothing treasured or self-conscious about her approach; all the music flows like a stream, taking within the easy and the craggy moments with equality. It is nearly as if the music is creating itself from the keyboard without intervention. Listen, for instance, to how well Art & Music she captures the loping syncopations in “Forlane” from Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin; I’ve by no means heard it performed this well in my life. The Angel, like most of Medtner’s music, is Romantic in construction and harmonic language but extremely attention-grabbing in construction.
Escher’s drawings of houses with staircases that go every which means at bodily impossible angles. “New Car Smell” has a really humorous really feel to it despite the harmonic edginess of the piece, and “The sudden, innervating clarity afforded by new glasses” is a kind of modern polytonal fanfare. Judith Nasby, founding director and curator of …