Zanon and Pescia play Zanon

This double CD with piano works by Gregorio Zanon (*1980) focuses on a Swiss composer who is still little known in German-speaking Switzerland. Unjustly so, I would say after this first encounter with his work. It is a pity that the record company spends two pages on the biography of the pianist Cédric Pescia, who enjoys an excellent reputation in this country, while only scant information about the composer can be found in the booklet. Wikipedia tells us that Zanon, who was born in Geneva, studied in his home town with Jean Balissat and Eric Gaudibert and in London with Dominic Muldowney. He has already achieved considerable success with works for strings in particular.

Zanon's piano works are stylistically diverse. He is not an iconoclast who wants to reinvent music, but neither is he an eternalist who still composes today as he did in Brahms' time. Instead, he builds his own musical cosmos from the elements of tonal music, which may at times be reminiscent of Scriabin, Shostakovich or Ravel, but as a whole represents a very personal achievement. Even after thinking about it for a while, it is hard to think of a musical category in which to categorize Zanon's work. In his booklet text, Antonin Scherrer aptly names meditative or nostalgic counterpoint, memories of birdcalls and hyper-romantic verve as elements of Zanon's style. Despite the sometimes sophisticated construction of his pieces, one often has the impression that they are improvised in the moment and that the course is not yet definitively defined. Some of the works on the CDs are the result of reworkings of pieces that the composer had partly composed during his studies or even before. The revisions have presumably stood them in good stead, as they now seem to have been cast from a single mold. A witty homage to Bach are the three Goldberg Etudeswhich give a very subtle hint of the Leipzig master. They would certainly be a great success in any piano recital.

Cédric Pescia and Gregorio Zanon share the recording of the nine works, which are quite demanding pianistically. Pescia pulls out all the stops of his ability and it is a pleasure to listen to him. It is obvious to the ear that he fully identifies with these pieces. The big surprise, however, is the composer himself, who is an ideal interpreter of his works, very sonorous in delicate passages, but also present where they require great technical skill. No wonder Pescia remembers being overwhelmed when he heard Zanon "play his music - live!" for the first time.