Munich: Jazz pianist Johanna Summer inspires in the Schwere Reiter – Munich

The interest is great. The jazz pianist Johanna Summer, born in 1995, presents her new album at the Schwere Reiter, which was almost sold out. Two years ago, the musician created a small sensation with her classical overwriting of Schumann. She is now continuing this principle under the title “Resonances” and expanding the circle of composers across epochs and styles. From Bach’s three-part Invention No. 11 to Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata, she uses hits from the piano literature such as Beethoven’s Sonata No. 15, Schubert’s Impromptu op. 90, no. 4, or Tchaikovsky’s Nocturne from op. 19.

With the shimmering piano music story in the background, Summer improvises on familiar themes. She uses arpeggiated chords or slightly dissonant polyphony, usually beginning the pieces with a kind of development of her own, only to then suddenly let the main motif flash out inconspicuously. It sounds very soft, very flowing, very accessible. Beethoven, Schubert and finally Tchaikovsky follow Ravel’s Prelude from the “Couperin”.

But there is also a danger in standardizing these different styles of music and the different emphasis of the composers into such a smooth sound mix. Familiar themes underlaid with a modern sound, sometimes blurring into a merely skilful medley.

So Johanna Summers always wins when she pushes her pianistic virtuosity further stylistically and ends up in jazz, in groove, in blues. When she reduces the voices, omits the filler material, when she finds her own language for the old tones. Be it a busy groove in the middle register before Tchaikovsky. Or trills, which she presses further and further into forte until they end in noise and are picked up by a blues line in the bass.

In such moments, it is reminiscent of such great classical overwrites like that of Uri Caine. This is where Summer’s approach grows strong, where artistry takes on artistic value and presents music history as a flashing commentary in the present rather than an easy-listening version of the past.

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