Greenland
Performed by Steven Beck (Piano)
“The composer has never been to Greenland and can hardly imagine what it really feels like.” This is not geographically reliable programme music, but a therapeutic journey through the endless freezing space, where under the ice one can find something living, fragile, vulnerable and green. The music of the cycle balances between references to the classics (Bach, Beethoven, Schubert) and the variable rhythms of the twentieth century (Simeon ten Holt, Astor Piazzolla, Georgy Sviridov, Paweł Szymański, Leonid Desyatnikov and David Lang). While Shmurak was trained as a classical pianist and most of his recent works are highly experimental and conceptual, Greenland’s programme is in line with his philosophical thinking — a fantasy about a place which will indeed become only a phantom for listeners in the distant future.