Claude Ballif, "Les Airs Comprimes"

-- Liner Notes Continued --

Side A | Side B

Les Airs comprimes Op. 5: completed in 1953, belong to the works for solo piano, extremely imortant by their number and significance. In any case, it required a deep feeling of synthesis, much humour and conciseness to write such contrasting contributions of a Satie and of a Webern in these seven brief pieces. The title, a pun, could indeed had one to think of a spiritual heritage descending from Maitre d'Arcueil. In reality, it underlines, with a smile, a discipline of language, the composer being forced to avoid any repetition of thematic cells, timbres, sonorities or effects. Here he is inspired by a line from Valery's "introduction a la methode de Leonard de Vinci"