Olafur Arnalds, Alice Sara Ott – The Chopin Project (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Olafur Arnalds, Alice Sara Ott – The Chopin Project (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 45:36 minutes | 858 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Mercury KX

Award-winning young Icelandic pop/classical musician Ólafur Arnalds uses a radical new approach to recording the music of Chopin. Arnalds developed an intimate, fragile and often charmingly imperfect sound using old/unusual/altered pianos captured on vintage recording equipment and various mixing techniques to re-enforce feelings of solitude or loneliness, and to create dreamlike ambient soundscapes. Pianist Alice Sara Ott joins and Ólafur has composed new works to link the album together.

This week’s entry in the very-much-like-nothing-you’ve-ever-heard-before sweepstakes comes from Icelandic electronic musician and composer Ólafur Arnalds and German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott, whose recording of Chopin waltzes inspired the project. What you get are recordings of Chopin piano compositions, plus original compositions by Arnalds based on motifs from Chopin. In one case, “Eyes Shut/Nocturne in C minor” (track six), the two are combined. Arnalds’ pieces employ his own electronic keyboard textures, plus a live string quintet. On top of this, the pianos are vintage instruments hunted down in Reykjavik, and the ambience, if you will, was manipulated by recording in various venues and with various microphones there. And, on top of all this, Arnalds adds ambient soundscapes (noise, sounds of conversation, whispers, etc.) to the music. The ideas seem packed in a bit thick. The string quintet, for example, was a sound unused by Chopin, and it introduces an element that seems discordant with the source material. But there is a major X factor working in favor of this release: nobody has ever tried anything much like this, either with Chopin or with any other composer, and it just might be the beginning of something new and important. Check it out and decide for yourself! – James Manheim

Tracklist:
Ólafur Arnalds (b.1985)
1. Verses 04:03

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
2. Piano Sonata No.3: Largo 09:17
3. Nocturne in C Sharp Minor 04:24

Ólafur Arnalds
4. Reminiscence 04:28

Frédéric Chopin
5. Nocturne in G Minor 03:01

Ólafur Arnalds
6. Eyes Shut – Nocturne in C Minor 06:41
7. Written In Stone 03:27
8. Letters Of A Traveller 04:17

Frédéric Chopin
9. Prélude in D Flat Major (Raindrop) 05:57

Personnel:
Piano: Alice Sara Ott
Piano (Track 8): Ólafur Arnalds
Solo Violin (Track 3): Mari Samuelsen
String Quintet: Viktor Orri Árnason,
Björk Óskarsdóttir, Þórarinn Baldursson,
Unnur Jónsdóttir and Hallgrímur Jónas Jensson
Synthesizers: Ólafur Arnalds

Download: