Mikael Ayrapetyan - A Whole in 12

Information

1. Miniatures for Piano "A Whole in 12": No. 1, Autumnal
2. Miniatures for Piano "A Whole in 12": No. 2, The Lady Plays
3. Miniatures for Piano "A Whole in 12": No. 3, Longing
4. Miniatures for Piano "A Whole in 12": No. 4, Dilemma
5. Miniatures for Piano "A Whole in 12": No. 5, Arousal
6. Miniatures for Piano "A Whole in 12": No. 6, Prayer
7. Miniatures for Piano "A Whole in 12": No. 7, Clouds
8. Miniatures for Piano "A Whole in 12": No. 8, The First Snow
9. Miniatures for Piano "A Whole in 12": No. 9, Christmas Eve
10. Miniatures for Piano "A Whole in 12": No. 10, Totality
11. Miniatures for Piano "A Whole in 12": No. 11, Rain and Rendezvous
12. Miniatures for Piano "A Whole in 12": No. 12, Finality

Mikael Ayrapetyan, piano & compositions

Date: 2019

Label: Grand Piano

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Review

Some music revisits ideas that might need revisiting. Others perhaps get to places that may appeal or may not, depending on your musical temperament, but nonethless do revisit with a seriousness of intent. Pianist-composer Mikael Ayrapetyan (b. 1984) strays into melodic territory with his own sensibilities and it all may give you pleasure I trust, depending on what your ear wants to hear. I speak of his A Whole in 12, Miniatures for Piano (Grand Piano 809), which presents to us 12 lyrical solo piano works that have a rhapsodistic lyricism and a soaring sort of introspection that in lesser hands could well degenerate into New Age lullabies.

It is all very tonal, and fine for that. It is thick with chordal accompaniment throughout, the left hand offering up broken arpeggiated, sometimes near-Alberti chordal patterns quite pianistic, a constant factor. I find myself listen to the left hand and finding it interesting in itself as I hear this album repeatedly. That is me though.

He is an Armenian known for a more identifiably Armenian style via his "Secrets of Armenia" project. This music is not typical for what Armenian music normally might be--not in the melodically minor mode of the Armenian strain, and that should I suppose neither deter us nor encourage us, for no artist should be expected only to follow a local muse. Still the singsong diatonic, often major-moded channels of this music was not what I might have expected and in some ways it is not how I would want to express myself personally. Of course that is never something that should stop us in our tracks, but then the question is whether the music appeals nonetheless? A Satie for example could excel with such reduced means, but this is not Satie-like. It goes elsewhere.

I cannot say I love all twelve of these miniatures. There are a few that haunt, a few others that seem a little too endlessly sweet, like baklava. Your personal capacity for such things will select you from among the crowd. If you crave the lyrically melodic, the nearly simple plainness of lyric sweet-amidst-sweet, you will no doubt be well served by this one. I find a number of them very lovely.

So it is your move. Ayrapetyan is dead serious about his lyric spell. Try a little and see what you think.

— Grego Applegate Edwards 

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Mikael Ayrapetyan (born 1984) is an Armenian pianist, composer and researcher. Following his debut at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium, he has championed the works of numerous Armenian composers through performances, recordings and his Secrets of Armenia project, initiated during his studies at the Moscow Conservatory. Trained in the Russian piano tradition, Ayrapetyan performs a broad repertoire from Baroque to contemporary music, with a particular focus on rarely heard Armenian works. He is a recipient of Armenia's State Prize and has received critical acclaim for his many award-winning recordings.

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