Into the seemingly endless European (and increasingly American) market for soothing, crossover piano steps pianist
Aleksander Debicz, a native of Wroclaw and a graduate of the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. As a graduate of the traditional Polish system of pedagogy, he has plenty of experience in traditional repertory, but he has also experimented in jazz, rock, and other worlds beyond the classics. This
Cinematic Piano is not a collection of film music classics, but a set of short original pieces in an improvisatory mode: film music without an actual film, despite the highly descriptive titles (A Wannabe Spy, A Letter to Mr. Newman).
Debicz has been compared to
Ludovico Einaudi, and he is certainly after the same listeners, but there's a different feel to the music, more economical and less monumental. If you like
Einaudi, you may well like this, but a better comparison is
Michael Nyman, who did write actual film music, but has only rarely used the piano. The minimalist ethos is present with
Debicz, but repeated arpeggio figures serve more as a starting point than as a structural organizing device. Even if
Einaudi and company are not your cup of tea, you may well admire how
Debicz has carved distinctive little scenes out of a bland popular language. ~ James Manheim