FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE: Complete Solo Piano Works – Michael Krücker, piano – NCA (New Classical Adventure) multichannel SACD 60189, 78:53 [Distr. by Naxos] ***:
Of music, Nietzche said: “All those who disdain it are to be regarded as inane, animal-like creatures.” Well, I never delved deeply into Nietzche but after reading that I’ve become more interested. It turns out that the primary influence on Nietzche’s life, thinking and philosophizing was music. No other philosopher has personally demonstrated his own uncompromising dedication to music more unconditionally than Friedrich Nietzsche. He entrusted all his major musical ideas to the piano, impressing his friends as a student with his improvisations. He was a self-taught composer, and unfortunately upon listening to the 18 tracks of this packed SACD one becomes eventually aware of that. He wrote 72 works in all, of which about 50 have survived. Who knew that Nietzche was a composer? – even though this is primarily eager juvenilia.
Some of the miniatures are similar to Chopin, others to Liszt. There are also echoes of Mahler, Beethoven, and Schumann. He also wrote lieds, composing the music first and then seeking out a poem that would suit it. Krücker performs the pieces to be in their best light; not his fault if they don’t quite measure up. He uses a lot of pedal, making the dissonance of some of the pieces more palatable. NCA is doing many other more worthwhile SACDs and should be complimented for this interesting historical effort, in state of the art surround sonics. Sorry, I won’t bother with listing all 27 tracks in their original German, which won’t mean that much anyway, even with the translations.
– John Sunier
