{"title":"Carlos Cipa","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"the-book-of-sounds-2","title":"The Book of Sounds","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe new recording of \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Sounds\u003c\/i\u003e is an intimate exploration of the piano by pianist Carlos Cipa - a way of looking into the sound, of listening into the moment when Cipa's fingers press down on the piano keys. \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Sounds\u003c\/i\u003e, composed between 1979 and 1982 by composer and pianist Hans Otte, is a musical pendulum movement of one hour in twelve 'pieces', as the composer himself describes them. Chords and melodies repeat themselves, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly; they follow each other in harmonic cadences and yet never dissolve - a timeless back and forth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Book of Sounds\u003c\/i\u003e is the European-German answer to the concert music of American minimalism. But it is also the essence of many questions about society and the human condition at that time. Inspired by Zen Buddhism, Otte was convinced that a return to simplicity, to the unagitated - a piano, harmonic cadences, a middle register - frees the listener to focus on what is really important in art: the human being. Introspection begins with listening. Seldom have simple chords and melodies been so selectively staged. It is a process of endless reduction - no wild sound dramaturgies, no climaxes, hardly any beginning or end. The interpreting pianist simply prepares a tableaux of perception for the listener. Cipa naturally sets accents; he recorded the 12 pieces on three different pianos - a Steinway grand piano, a Yamaha piano, and a Yamaha CP-70, an early electric piano - to help shape the tonal characteristics.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCarlos Cipa hits the nerve of the times with this new recording. What music can be as art is still up for debate today. The Book of Sounds is not 'art-proof' and in this it is still a provocation today; absolutely unspectacular and practising relaxation. It is a wonderful invitation to feel, experience, and perhaps even find oneself in the confrontation with the work - and for a moment not to fuel the discourse. Cipa, who otherwise appears as a composer himself, here carries out Otte's intended gesture of withdrawal in a double sense and steps into the background as creator but also interpreter, in order to bequeath The Book of Sounds to the loudspeakers and headphones at home in one step forward.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Carlos Cipa","offers":[{"title":"Black LPx2","offer_id":51120629416267,"sku":"2240104","price":36.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/CS1065784-01A-BIG_a187f9c1_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1737202262"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/de\/collections\/carlos-cipa-2.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}