Vienna Concert

Artist: Keith Jarrett
Label: Ecm Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Live
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 731451343728
EAN: 0731451343728
ASIN: B0000247YQ

Release Date: 2000-03-07

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Tracks:

Vienna, Part I
Vienna, Part II

Similar Items:

Paris Concert
The Köln Concert
Solo Concerts: Bremen & Lausanne
La Scala
The Carnegie Hall Concert

Customer Reviews:

Holy Grail.......2006-09-08

This concert, in Jarrett's own words, doesn't just throw sparks but speaks the language of the flame itself. I have to agree with the other reviewers in saying that there is something mystical about this concert, beyond words, beyond any explanation, even for Jarrett. It is symmetrical, it is profound, and it speaks of an incredible journey of incredible depth.
I have never heard a human being play music like this, much less improvise it, and I assure you that this recording will bring you hours of enjoyment and thought for years. I return to this recording often and still hear new things. It is a many-facet jewel to look at and see through, and hold dear. It is a moment in time that will last forever.

Intensely emotional improvised adventure.......2006-07-11

This is one of my favorite solo piano concerts by Keith Jarrett.

It may be somewhat less accessible than the Koln concert for example, because in the first part we find an extended atonal improvisation, which to the uninitiated can be quite unpleasant or even disturbing to listen to.

However if you listen with an open mind you will find some stunningly beautiful moments on this album. The first jazzy section is very pleasant listening, and then it gradually morphs into a very dark chordy passage rife with fascinating harmonies.

It is after this section that a very intense, rhythmic and dark portion starts. This is one of my favorite moments in the entire concert. Eventually he immerses us deeper and deeper in dissonance until he indulges in virtuosic atonal runs up and down the keyboard for a long time. However---he continues with a similar figuration from the atonal passage and transitions into a glorious major key passage! It is like contrasting Hell with Heaven.

The second part of the concert may be seen by some as repetitive as he stays very much in one key area for a long time, however the variations in dynamics and rhythm are fascinating.

After that my favorite moment in the whole concert begins. He starts playing these atmospheric tremolo passages with an almost medieval style melody. The melody has a "conversation" between the hands, with some slowly descending figures. Suddenly! He takes this conversation and plays them as very very soft chords---it is some of the most intensely sad piano music I have ever heard. Then the tremolos come back...this has a very powerful effect.

Being a piano improviser myself I highly highly reccommend purchasing this album. Keith Jarrett is one of a kind!

Jarrett's finest hour.......2005-11-17

The art of improvisation has been embedded in music for as long as music itself has existed. Contrary to popular belief, improvisation is not reserved for only jazz musicians. The undisputed masters of classical Western music - J.S. Bach, Mozart, Liszt - were incredible improvisors, though most probably consider them strict, verbatim composers. Great composition, however, flows from the same river as great improvisation, and sometimes, the two meld into one, uniting the two most significant musical disciplines into a seamless artistic statement. Keith Jarrett has done an immense amount of solo piano improvisation and has come away with some wonderful works, but never has he composed spontanteously, with such beauty, on the piano as he did on that glorious night in Vienna.

If the listener is to gain anything from listening to Vienna, they must treat it with respect. The program demands it - one 42-minute and one 20-minute piece. Be rest assured, however, that the more respect you give this recording, the more it will give back to you. Don't listen to this while you walk the city streets or ride the subway, at least on your first several listens. Listen to this in a quiet room, with no distractions, just as you would during a concert of Jarrett's music.

Part I is the centerpiece of this recording, and is effectively divided into several movements. The first movement, at roughly 13 minutes, establishes a deceptively simple, yet beautiful, theme and plays with it in various permutations, often swelling and ratcheting the intensity of the notes to build tension and take the listener a journey instead of taking them through a mundane sonata form. Jarrett's music has never been this beautiful, and there are few other recordings where he reaches this level, with Radiance being a possible exception. For those who have heard Jarrett's earlier recordings, especially ones like The Koln Concert from the '70s, the quantum leap in facility and skill will be striking, as Jarrett comes closer and closer to creating music without physical limitations of hands, fingers, or mechanisms.

The second movement starts extremely quietly and builds to a raucous climax that is so aggressive that it almost sounds atonal, yet on close examination falls squarely within a key center. Jarrett again begins with a basic theme and alters it to his liking until concepts like theme and variation are transcended and only music comes forth. After blowing the second movement out of the water, Jarrett comes down slightly for his third and final movement, his coda of Part I. It restates the theme from the first movement differently, yet retains the same cohesive narrative thread that he established in the first several minutes of Part I. Jarrett ends with beautiful falling action and brings the listener down softly to an ultimate, satisfying resolution in a squarely consonant, major tonality.

Part II is in the spirit of Part I's second movement, except it has less skillful rise and fall in the way of musical narration. Jarrett is more clearly riffing on a basic groove or riff in Part II, and it's still viscerally pleasing, yet without the sophistication and contour of Part I. After Part I, however, it's only natural that he should be a little tired, so to speak, and resort to a more watered-down form of improvisation.

Part I is one of the finest solo improvisations you will ever hear from Jarrett, let alone anyone. The way he skillfully blended his various themes into a tightly woven narrative framework that constitutes a legitimate composition has been reached few other times by Jarrett (notably on La Scala, although that was several years after Vienna). In the end, though, the music speaks for itself, and this review is simply to convince you to go out and experience it for yourself. I suggest you do so, and treat the music with respect. Few other works of art deserve it as much as the Vienna Concert does.

Sunday Morning CD.......2005-11-14

I have listened to just about everything that Jarrett has released over the last 35 years, even his work with Miles, and this ranks as my favorite. For a long time I thought that nothing could compare to his Bremen & Laussane, Sun Bear Concerts or Koln Concerts in terms of his live improvisational work...... until I heard this CD. As other reviewers have indicated, it is really impossible to describe this recording, so I won't really try to do that. But to give the potential listener some sense of what they're in for, the first piece is roughly 41 minutes and change and the second piece comes in at about 25 minutes. The first piece begins with a very deliberate approach. The chord changes are almost hymnal in genre, the melody melancholy, yet soothing. As the piece progresses, it builds momentum and you can hear Jarret's humming and cries of joy, feet stomping, hands slapping at and pounding keys and wood. The piece then takes a darker turn, as if replicating a life's journey through triumph and tragedy. The second piece picks up where piece one left off, yet seems to come to terms with the earlier conflict along the journey and concludes with a kind of quiet resignation, as do most of us in life. The crowd responds with delirious applause. I'm not trying to sound like a dinosaur, but you really have to search for this kind of music in these times; the kind that moves you, that resonates with you viscerally. It's out there, but it's very rare, indeed. Even though this CD takes some participation by the listener because it is a huge work, when you give it the time, it is a wonderful listening experience for those who enjoy classical, hymnal, jazz, and any kind of improvisational music. The music is powerful, soothing, simple, complex; it runs the gamut of human emotion. Most highly recommended.

A unique musical experience.......2005-10-17

The type of improvisation in which Keith Jarrett excels is, at its best, a wonderful experience. It is, however, also full of suspense, because along the performance there are always points in which he seems to have lost his way. People who listen to his probings in all directions until he finds a way out are unavoidably left in anxious expectation - will he get away with it, this time? He always seems to do, that is what we wish and what we have come to expect from him, but there is this unpleasant fear, as if we were parents watching their child`s debut on the scene. Amazingly enough, this anguish at the "lost" phase does not disappear when we listen to the CD repeatedly, but it also makes the final liberation an unforgettable experience every time. So the various people who reviewed this CD before me were all right in their apparently disparate judgments. It is wonderful, and it is exhasperating. It does feel like a lonely tree that has survived a tempest, as a reviewer put it, but it is frustrating to those who would like it to be easier to listen, as others have pointed out. The reviewer who said the creative strain will become clearer with each listening was also right. Because there is a lot of probing, and a very slowly emerging solution, the evolution of melody is hardly perceptible for a while, but listening to it repeatedly reveals the uniqueness of Jarrett`s creativity. No wonder he considers it to be his best work - it sounds as a real battle with inspiration, and a victorious one.

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