Brad Mehldau - Variations on a Melancholy Theme (2021) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Brad Mehldau’s Variations on a Melancholy Theme will be released June 11, 2021, on Nonesuch Records. The recording features the pianist/composer and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which commissioned this orchestral version of the work, which comprises a theme and eleven variations plus a cadenza and postlude; the album also includes an encore, “Variations ‘X’ and ‘Y.’” You can watch a video with excerpts from the piece below. (Mehldau originally composed Variations on a Melancholy Theme for pianist Kirill Gerstein.) Mehldau and Orpheus toured Europe, Russia, and the US with the piece, including a 2013 performance at Carnegie Hall. Speaking to the combination of classical form with jazz harmonies in the work’s musical language, Mehldau wrote, “I imagine it as if Brahms woke up one day and had the blues.”

Mehldau continues, “The theme itself has a wistful character, perhaps a feeling of resignation. There is some sense of finality and ending to it when heard for the first time already. So as I composed, a narrative challenge emerged; namely, how to embark on a story that begins with a conclusion. While the theme evokes melancholy, I let it be used as a springboard for other happy, wild, violent, and reckless emotions as the variations progress.”

TRACKLIST

01. Brad Mehldau - Theme
02. Brad Mehldau - Variation 1
03. Brad Mehldau - Variation 2
04. Brad Mehldau - Variation 3
05. Brad Mehldau - Variation 4
06. Brad Mehldau - Variation 5
07. Brad Mehldau - Variation 6
08. Brad Mehldau - Variation 7
09. Brad Mehldau - Variation 8
10. Brad Mehldau - Variation 9
11. Brad Mehldau - Variation 10
12. Brad Mehldau - Variation 11
13. Brad Mehldau - Cadenza
14. Brad Mehldau - Postlude
15. Brad Mehldau - Encore: Variations "X" & "Y"



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