On all three discs, one of Australia's finest exponents of the home-grown product, Jeanell Carrigan, plays these works with skill, sincerity and affection.
The first CD, ARABESQUE (Wilcher 01), reveals the use of modal tonalities and sparse textures.The music rarely reaches above a healthy mezzo-forte or even a brisk allegro.It has been said that 'loud and fast' is the uneducated person's way of expressing strong emotion.Wilcher's music,by contrast, needs breadth, space and time.Thus the impetus of the third movement of THE WALLS OF UKHAYDIR is all the more arresting as it's the first time we hear a real sense of momentum in the music's flow.
If it's just virtuosity you're looking for, here is not the place to find it. COBWEBS is charming and has real elegance, while PROBE takes us into the world of outer space, disembodies and remote.The mysterious CATACOMBS brings Debussy to mind.
The mood continues with his second release, OUT OF THE BLOWING SANDS (Wilcher 02), which for me is the pick of the three.The music is more animated and its contrasts make it an easier CD to listen to in one take.There is more emphasis on melody and this quality is revealed as a strong point in Wilcher's writing.The simple beauty of DEGAS and MONET expresses purity and innocence,while the poetry of CONSOLATION and CONTINUAL DEW reveals a melancholy unsurpassed even by Chopin.
Talking of Chopin, CHOPINIANA,written for Dulcie Holland's 80th birthday, represents what is for me Wilcher's masterpiece. It bears one of the hallmarks of greatness in that it sounds familiar even on first hearing.It has flowing melody, delicate harmonies and Chopinesque counterpoint. Even VALSE RENOIR seems to come straight from the Chopin school of waltzing.The TOCCATA keeps its manners in check, with no evidence of a Prokofiev or even a Schumann, and the whimsical CAFE BIJOU represents the nearest Wilcher comes to sleaze.
The third CD, ETCHINGS (Wilcher 03), returns to the sparse textures of single notes, implied harmonies and long silences. THE SEVEN ETCHINGS OF EOS which opens the disc requires concentration on the part of the listener.Twenty-three minutes of gentle, unobtrusive piano music which does not offend the ear and with a tempo that never rises above andante, runs the risk of being bypassed by the casual listener.
Less so are the SIX ETUDES, not virtuosic works as in the style of Chopin or Liszt.These pieces explore the varying sonorities caused by gentle figurations which sweep across the stave from treble to bass and back again. They each have fanciful,Alkanesque titles, such as THROUGH A HERMITAGE WINDOW, SCENTED LEAVES FROM A CHINESE JAR and STONE WARRIORS.
ECHINGS has the most perfect ending to any collection of miniatures. ONE TUESDAY IN SEPTEMBER (no prizes for guessing which event this refers to)is predicably dark and Wilcher's only real bitter and powerfully emotional work on these three CDs.It is followed by VALE(Farewell),the final piece on the disc.This is an exorcism, a final resolution of the horror expressed in the preceding item.This work is two minutes of sheer perfection.Listening to it I am reminded of the famous comment that sculpture is not so much the creation itself, as the removal of that which is unnecessary, to reveal the beauty lying within.
Such is the nature of Wilcher's own, very personal brand of music sculpture.
MS
