REPOSE
I’m not sure if in this limpid and languishing lockdown we need repose. I don’t know about you but I long for a something a bit more stressful – ‘it’s already 7 15, I’m at home doing the washing up but the curtain goes up the Arts in half an hour’. Or, ‘ do I really want to go out in the pouring rain to hear a Vivaldi concert at West Road (of course I do). So in some ways we’ve been having a lot of regulated repose in the last year or so. These were my feelings as I unwrapped the cover of a new CD by Berlin-based pianist Jasmin Seidl. ‘Repose’ is her latest album, a collection of 12 newly composed pieces by her. Each movement (the longest is just a tad over four minutes) has a reposeful title: Fog, Lullaby Talk, Melting and Soothing Rain.
Seidl says of her work, ‘Let´s find space for small, simple and true things, for being unique and peculiar. For noticing what most people don’t see, for being open to deep, essential stuff. Let´s make a place for focusing on the bizarre and truly human in us. Happiness happens when we choose our own story apart from what others think.’ Amen to that.
For Jasmin Seidl, repose is something much deeper that enforced rest. The pieces are designed, I imagine, to encourage self reflection, to use the helping hand of these gentle pieces to let the mind wander into its own private space. This is not an album for drivetime jams or to get you out of bed in the morning. It’s best enjoyed on a comfy sofa perhaps with a glass of something liquidly reposeful in the hand.
Siedl’s playing is deceptively simple – bright and delicate, nothing to scare the robins and great tits from your feeding table. Her melodies remind me of the music one hears when having a lovely aromatherapy session (remember those days?). The volume range stays pretty much within m to mf and though there are hints at melody, tunes never quite emerge. This is soothing music for the soul so don’t expect to be whistling its airs or doing the Twist to ‘Contentment’ or ‘Valse Triste’. One piece ‘Fog’ has more than an echo of Eric Satie – a pounding bass against a wistful and mysterious right hand.
If you are looking for crisply played music to help on a journey towards your inner strengths (perhaps battered by the harsh winds of this pandemic), then this is the ideal accompaniment. I’m off to play it again, eyes closed, mind calmed and whisky in hand. Repose now looks more exciting.
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