Poems to Sing at Night, New Piano Music by Brian Buch

This is the second album by composer/pianist Brian Buch.  He holds a B.M. in composition with emphasis in piano performance from Indiana University and a Doctorate from Boston University.

He studied composition with a variety of notable teachers including Don Freund, P.Q. Phan, Sven-David Sandstrøm, Nancy van de Vate, Sam Headrick and Richard Cornell.  He lists his mentor as Alla Cohen, a name unfamiliar to this writer but no doubt a significant teacher and composer.

This album was released in 2015 and contains tracks comprising 5 compositions with multiple movements.  These represent a small portion of his output which apparently includes music for various ensembles including vocal, orchestral and chamber music.  All the pieces on the present album were written between 2014 and 2015.

These seem to be very personal pieces and the poetic titles reflect a sort of post-romantic style reminiscent of Bartok and Scriabin and perhaps even Debussy. This music benefits from multiple hearings and his performances are engaging and, no doubt, definitive. His muscular and assertive playing matches the poetic intensity of the music.

Poems to Sing at Night 1 and 2 both have poems which are to be recited before each performance though that is not done on the recording for some reason.  Both pieces are in four distinct movements while all the others are in three movements.

One hears jazz and classical influences here and the medium is basically tonal.He is not afraid of dissonance and unusual harmonies but the listener need not fear either because the music is always listenable.

John Weston recorded and engineered this album which was recorded in April, 2015 at the Futura Studios in Roslindale, MA.  The sound is warm and lucid.

In some ways this album seems to hearken back to the romantic composer/performer of the 19th century with its very personal style and poetic rather than classical forms.  This young man (b. 1984) has established and is developing a very personal style which bears watching/listening.  Very enjoyable album.