If it is taken as a conceptual whole, this book and CD package from Musicales Actes Sud is a little confusing because the recordings by
Jean Louis Steuerman of piano music by
Arnold Schoenberg,
Alban Berg, and
Anton Webern are provided as accompaniment for moody black and white photographs by
Michael Ackerman, apparently to create a suggestive atmosphere for them. What the Viennese School of the early 20th century has to do with
Ackerman's post-millennial visions is not clear, except if one imagines that the denizens of the pictures could have stepped out of the period when the selections were composed (roughly 1908 to 1936).
Ackerman's neo-expressionistic photography depicts an environment where darkness encroaches on vulnerable people and desolate scenes, and the angular, atonal keyboard pieces of
Schoenberg,
Berg, and
Webern are supplied, presumably, as disturbing mood music. Yet
Berg's Piano Sonata, Op. 1;
Webern's Variations, Op. 27; and
Schoenberg's Suite, Op. 25, among others of the latter's piano pieces, are abstract compositions that do not necessarily evoke the grim world of these photographs, and the use of the music to provide a gloomy or sinister ambience seems inappropriate. Conversely, the pictures add nothing to the music. However, if one separates the photographs from the recordings and appreciates them in their own right, it's clear that the music doesn't need any imagery to communicate.
Steuerman's playing is sympathetic and meticulous, and his polished performances linger in the memory long after
Ackerman's photographs have been put aside. Admirers of
Ackerman's work will want this volume, but
Steuerman's CD will likely attract a different audience.