HANKINSON,PAUL - Echoes Of A Winter Journey (Sealed) (CD)

When the Australian pianist Paul Hankinson recalls those special Schubert moments that inspired his purely instrumental solo piano album "Echoes Of A Winter Journey", all of them have one thing in common: they are not musical incidental moments, but maximum overwhelming miniatures of pure emotion that develop an impressive life of their own from the very first second of their development. Just like these moments when you walk through the city in a rush of thoughts and to-do-lists and suddenly a stranger, passing by, with the scent of a familiar perfume, turns on the memory diorama until everything is brightly illuminated. Hankinson, who has been living in Berlin since 2006, has reinterpreted 10 Schubert motifs on "Echoes Of A Winter Journey". Intuitive, but not improvised in the album version - they are deliberately defined pieces. However, only two of them were actually inspired by Franz Schubert's song cycle "Winterreise" (1827):"Gute Nacht" developed from the opening song of the same name,"Komm mit mir" ("Come with me") based on a motif from the finale "Der Leiermann". The 41-year-old would also like to see the album title understood more as an "invitation to the mood of the record" - "This Schubert feeling, and especially my memories of some of Schubert's magical, heartbreaking moments. Somehow they're all winter." It's the fine, filigree, focused. But also: the transient, heavy snow cover, contemplative. And yet the songs on "Echoes Of A Winter Journey" - at the latest in the lingering sound and despite all the melancholy - always have something hopeful. In the spirit of Albert Camus, who said:"In the middle of the deepest winter, I finally realized that an invincible summer resides in me" It is also music that understands all the nuances of silence between the tones as an equal part of the piece. The space leaves room for one's own thoughts, feelings, memories