Best of 2024: The Blind Banister

The New York Times, Gramophone, and NPR celebrate Timo Andres’ new studio album, The Blind Banister, in their "Best of 2024" lists.

The New York Times, Joshua Barone:

“Timo Andres’s piano concerto “The Blind Banister,” a 2016 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, is structured in three movements but behaves like a single, grand gesture of descending scales and fascinating harmony. Threaded throughout is the solo part, played by the composer with wit and tender lyricism.” Read more

Gramophone, Pwyll ap Siôn:

“Nonesuch here offers us a beautifully recorded introduction to Timo Andres’s pianistic voice – both as the composer and performer.” Read more

NPR, Tom Huizenga:

For Those Who Like: Nico Muhly, piano concertos, Pulitzer finalists
The Story: Timo Andres, a thoughtful pianist-composer who turns 40 next year, has his agile fingers in many pies. Last year, he edited Philip Glass Piano Etudes, a new edition of the music, which he performed in various venues. Earlier this year, his orchestrations graced the Sufjan Stevens-inspired Broadway show Illinoise. And the title work of his third album, a piano concerto called The Blind Banister, earned much-deserved street cred after it became a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2016. This is the work's recorded debut, with the composer as soloist and tailor-made accompaniment by the Metropolis Ensemble.
The Music: What goes up must come down in The Blind Banister. The 20-minute concerto, inspired by Beethoven, presents a series of variations on a descending scale, which gets built up again, only to fall even harder — and lower on the keyboard — by the time warm string figures emerge in the coda. Often mesmerizing, Banister is a beautiful journey that concludes with a satisfying jolt of release. Colorful History is a darkly textured, cyclically driven solo piano work played by Andres, while Upstate Obscura, a cello concerto, offers the attentive soloist Inbal Segev opportunities to soar at the top of her instrument's register, chase themes in strings and winds and, finally, guide us through open spaces, pensive yet filled with promise. Read more