Nils Frahm - Wintermusik

Originally compiled and produced as a Christmas gift for family and friends, Wintermusik is certainly meant to be exquisitely beautiful, but it does not sound like it wants to be a crowd pleaser.  Nils Frahm plays three instruments - piano, celesta, reed organ - with beguiling simplicity. Dynamics are pp throughout, tempo is steady and slow start to finish. This is a mood study, mere texture and harmony. It is the musical equivalent of a Kertesz picture: a modest, plain, but subtle and magical slice of life as it slips day after day through our fingers. Or take this little amateur video that somebody slapped on top of the first track of the album: a train ride through a wonderfully open, snowy landscape at dusk. Captures the wistful atmosphere to perfection. If Frahm can do this when he is 28, what will he be able to offer at 82? I am very sorry I won't be around to hear it.