Quantcast

Call for Music Critics and Music Bloggers

Music
cover art

Dexter Romweber

piano

(Orange; US: 17 Oct 2006; UK: Available as import)

The late 19th century piano virtuoso and composer Moritz Moszkowski (1854-1925) once wrote in a guestbook, under the previous recitalist’s “Bach, Beethoven, Brahms—all the others cretins!” the legend “Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Moszkowski—all the others Christians.” Moszkowski was a more accomplished keyboard executant than Dexter Romweber, but this amusing surprise CD is of pretty well Moszkowski’s sort of music. Dex, as he signs his liner note (‘Romweber’ would sound a bit pompous in this context) reports that as a boy he was introduced to the piano and music with works of Beethoven, Mozart and his own hero Chopin. He used to dress like Chopin? Hopefully he’ll continue to enjoy better health than the composer to whose “Revolutionary Étude” his “Evolutionary Étude” makes a nod.  While Dex says you shouldn’t expect flawlessly clean fingering from him, certainly Claudio Array remembered expressiveness had a higher priority than precision in Moszkowski’s lifetime. The Note perfect fingering was a later generation’s affectation, soul came first. It does here, and this early 21st century amateur pianist and composer for piano musically contemporary with Moszkowski, Moscheles, D’Albert and Busoni only sounds like a silent film cinema pianist on the video track (clip from a film I’ve not seen, in which he sits down and plays a rough old upright in something like a janitors’ retiring room as one old guy plays cards, etc.). Dex’s piano playing doesn’t sound pretentious, which does suggest he isn’t shallow. And for once on a CD whose musical proponent has crossed over into classical European concert music the playing time hasn’t been swelled out with a lot of stuff inferior to silence. Hoorah!

Rating:

Tagged as: piano
Related Articles
Comments
Now on PopMatters
Love, and Other Indelible Stains (Columns) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Sigur Rós: Valtari (Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Lemonade: Diver (Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Cory Branan: Mutt (Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Big Science: Difficulty (Capsule Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Cut Chemist: Outro (Revisited) EP (Capsule Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Cygnets: Dark Days (Capsule Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Young Hines: Give Me My Change (Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Gazpacho: March of the Ghosts (Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Loga Ramin Torkian: Mehraab (Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Max Payne 3 (Reviews) [Wed, 1:00 am]
Call for Music Critics and Music Bloggers (Announcements) [Tue, 3:00 pm]
  1. The Top 10 Overplayed Songs You Hate by Artists You Love (Sound Affects)
  2. Tea with 'Sherlock': Investigating the Investigators (Features)
  3. Sunk? This 'Battleship' Stunk! (Short Ends and Leader)
  4. Tenacious D: Rize of the Fenix (Reviews)
  5. Top Ten Lost Midwest Punk Singles (Sound Affects)
  6. Like 'Doom', In Heels (Moving Pixels)
  7. 10 Pieces of Cinematic Art That Require Revisiting (Short Ends and Leader)
  8. She's a Rainbow: A Tribute to Donna Summer (Features)
  9. Punk Rock's Pet Sounds: An Interview with Bomb the Music Industry! (Features)
  10. Counterbalance No. 82: U2's 'Achtung Baby' (Sound Affects)
  11. 'Albatross': A Not-So-Weighty Coming-of-Age Meets Mid-Life-Crisis Film (Reviews)
  12. Counterbalance No. 83: The Stooges' 'Fun House' (Sound Affects)
  13. The 10 Greatest Aspects of the 'Star Wars' Franchise (Short Ends and Leader)
  14. We Will Avenge Them Or… Be Avenged?: The Individual in the US Experience (Features)
  15. The Queen and Her Crayons: An Interview With Donna Summer (Features)
  16. Early Summer 2012 New Music Playlist (Mixed Media)
  17. Killer Mike: R.A.P. Music (Reviews)
  18. The Best Canadian Records of the Year? The Fun Agony of Voting for the Polaris Prize Long List (Sound Affects)
  19. Sherlock Holmes, Dirk Gently and the Case of the Eccentric Detective (Columns)
  20. Flash Points: Mommy's Breast, Marriage Equality and Why Chipotle Is King (Features)
  21. Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death (Columns)
  22. In Support of Supports (Moving Pixels)
  23. Flash Points: Chicks, Sluts and Facebook (Features)
  24. In Defense Of... Rock Radio: A Force in Popular Culture (Columns)
  25. Saint Etienne: Words and Music (Reviews)
  26. Garbage: Not Your Kind of People (Reviews)
  27. The Cult: Choice of Weapon (Reviews)
  28. Willie Nelson: Heroes (Reviews)
  29. 'People's Pornography': The Mundanities of Pornography and Surveillance Culture (Reviews)
  30. Feeling '80s Spirit: Post-Hardcore Punk for the Plastic Generation (Columns)
PM Picks
Music Archive
Announcements

© 1999-2012 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.
PopMatters.com™ and PopMatters™ are trademarks
of PopMatters Media, Inc.

PopMatters is wholly independently owned and operated.
PopMatters is a member of BUZZMEDIA Music, MOG and Guardian Select.