Piano Passion: Arctic Fire by Benedikt

 

Piano Passion: Arctic Fire

By

Benedikt

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

July for me is a month, whose weather is almost unbearable; it’s a month where you literally have no choice other than to stop rushing around and stay put, so today I find this album a panacea to cure those woes, and as such Piano Passion: Arctic Fire is the perfect cure for my midsummer lethargy.

Piano Passion: Arctic Fire is an album that is sumptuous in its musical postulations, but soothing in its overall manifestation, just perfect for us who live in raging hot countries. The first piece from this delightful collective of brilliance is called Arctic Lullaby, and a gentler opening offering you will not find; it really is a scene setter and one of the most artistic creations from this vast genre I have heard for a while.

The release is 12 tracks of utterly beautiful piano with strings, in a multi-instrumental haven of pure quality, pieces like Drifting Ice, a perfect depiction with hovering strings, and a piano of an almost adagio quality, whilst classy gifts like Icicle Bicycle brought a moment of levity into the proceedings, with its upbeat piano narrative.

Snowburn was one of my personal favourites, a blissful juxtaposition of tone can be found here on this quite radiant of tracks, balanced beautifully with a mournful and reflective separate melody line, one played off the other, in an almost counter point style of proceedings.

Rapid opuses like Frozen Fire will thrill each and every listener, while crafted moments of genius like the soaring energies of the track Blizzard Wizard, with a wonderful organ that dances around the strings sections and piano was a thing of great beauty indeed. One can then also be encapsulated by the short form beauty of the arrangement entitled Polar Pool Party, a true harmonic convergence of piano and strings.

Feeling much cooler I found my way to the end of the album, where the penultimate offering that greeted me was the sublime and deeply moving composition called Lament on the Rocks, I found this one singular offering so stunning and deeply serene, that I could have left it on repeat with ease.

The concluding musical narrative is the curiously entitled Requiem for a Polar Bear, a somewhat gentle and tender tone can be found here, one that is both respectful as well as being idyllic in its arrangement, and as such was simply the best way with which to bring this excellent musical collection to its final coda.

Piano Passion: Arctic Fire by Benedikt has been one the most enjoyable albums I have had the great pleasure to listen to this year with ease; in fact I stopped writing at one point, and just listened to the release in its entirety, then started at its conclusion, I am glad I did, as this release is one that can literally flow right over you with a beautiful and tender vibration, making for me a truly beautiful release, where good things on that frozen horizon must simply be waiting to happen for, Piano Passion: Arctic Fire by Benedikt.