Keys of Life [Audio CD] Various Artists

Keys of Life represents the finest of contemporary piano music. This release offers an excellent sampler of the music of Celestial Harmonies' most celebrated artists. According to Stephen Hill and Anna Turner from Music From the Hearts of Space, "Keys of Life is an elegant collection of solo piano music selected with great care and understanding from the last five years of Celestial Harmonies releases". Without any intellectual pretensions toward doing so, Keys of Life documents the twentieth century European post-Romantic attempt at the direct stimulation of consciousness (rather than emotion) through music. From Cecil Lytle's sensitive performance of six miniatures by Russian mystic composer Alexander Skryabin, through the enormously dignified pan-Eurasian temple music of G.I. Gurdjieff and his pupil Thomas de Hartmann, to the latest just intonation piano experiments of Terry Riley, we hear a living artistic tradition unfolding through time. Florian Fricke's spacious and beautiful Spirit of Peace, Hans Otte's hypnotic, delicate music from The Book of Sounds, and the rippling, minimalistic patterns of Peter Michael Hamel's Transpersonal complete the collection. For those who appreciate clarity, intelligence, and the unique aesthetic world of refined subtlety, Keys of Life will completely satisfy. Listeners will enjoy this beautiful combination of styles and artists that celebrates music as the key to life.