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Many a domestic fantasy at this time of year involves good company around a crackling fireside. The encircling gloom and chill cry out for a fine storyteller to keep the onset of winter at bay.<\/p>\n
For some, the storyteller is a favourite video game. For others, a novel, or binge-watching a series on Netflix. But as the northwesterly wind has been getting ever more inhospitable, I\u2019ve found evening solace in the arms \u2013 or, more accurately, the hands \u2013 of pianist Jon Kimura Parker.<\/p>\n
The veteran virtuoso continues to climb high in his ongoing explorations of the toughest-to-scale peaks in the pianistic repertoire.<\/p>\n
While his spectacular keyboard adaptations of Igor Stravinsky\u2019s big ballet scores left me slack-jawed in admiration for his incredible technical skills, Parker\u2019s latest album, Fantasy, freshly pressed in time for the holiday season, goes beyond inspiring awe to enchant with each play.<\/p>\n
Fantasy is not just a technical showcase, but a big, clear picture window of a musician with a rich soul and great artistic depth. It is also a fantastic example of programming that entertains as well as edifies.<\/p>\n
Parker mixes two works that are demanding technically as well as artistically \u2013 Franz Schubert\u2019s \u201cWanderer\u201d Fantasie (in C minor, D760) and Robert Schumann\u2019s Op. 17 Fantasie with two extravagant modern spins on material from the musical stage: the Wizard of Oz Fantasy by William Hirtz (adapted by Parker for two hands instead of four) and Fantasia alla Cavalleria Rusticana by Calogero D Liberto, one of Parker\u2019s graduate students at Rice University in Texas.<\/p>\n
Rounding out this fantastical album is Mozart\u2019s unfinished D minor Fantasia (K397) \u2013 complete with Parker\u2019s own tastefully improvised ending.<\/p>\n
There is plenty of impeccably prepared and cooked musical meat here to satisfy the serious listener, as well as more frothy stuff to add some smiles, if not outright laughter to the 75 minutes of programming.<\/p>\n
Liberto and Hirtz have both incorporated familiar tunes from the source works into the sort of pianistic fireworks that leave recital audiences shouting for more. Mozart\u2019s Fantasia is brilliantly paced and modulated as Parker gracefully negotiates the piece\u2019s abrupt shifts and turns.<\/p>\n
But for me the biggest treats are the Schubert and Schumann, which open and close the disc. Playing the notes is never enough \u2013 and never more so than in these two great works of the early Romantic repertoire. Both pieces sprawl in the same way that Goethe\u2019s Werther just can\u2019t seem to get enough angst as he stumbles through his unhappy heart\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n
The greatest interpreters figure out how to organize the sprawl to let each story unfold seemingly naturally in its modulations from minor to major, from explosive outbursts to moments of introspection when time is meant to stand nearly still.<\/p>\n
Parker more than meets the challenge in crisply tailored interpretations that simultaneously embrace the Romantic angst at the root of both composers\u2019 intentions, while never making the music sound excessively melodramatic.<\/p>\n
In short, Parker has made these great musical stories even more compelling, seemingly effortlessly \u2013 which is a great storyteller\u2019s true secret weapon.<\/p>\n
This is a fabulous effort that also happens to be beautifully produced, with a rich, satisfying sound from a Hamburg Steinway piano.<\/p>\n