Out of My Hands

Nearly as far back as one can go with the canon of Western classical music — the mid-14th century or so — composers have been drawing upon the resources of popular music for inspiration. We don't recognize the tunes now in many cases, as we cannot listen with medieval or renaissance ears, but the pop hits of bygone centuries run through the masses and motets of that time, much as gypsy melodies and folk songs populate the symphonies and concertos of somewhat later times. The historic situation cuts both ways; in the nineteenth century, opera arias took pride of place alongside the parlor favorites, quadrilles, and sentimental heart songs that constituted musical life outside the opera house or concert pavilion. With the advent of rock & roll, its drum kit, bass, and electric guitars, and their requisite pedals — essentially placing the capability of a mini-orchestra under the hands of three or four players — the crosstalk with classical music heretofore hasn't been so natural or direct, though not for lack of trying; rock had barely been in the public consciousness three years before the first cross-pollinations with other music began to appear. Rock music, however, is so closely wedded to its performers and inherent sonic universe that to some ears, taking it into another dimension can only make it sound trite and second-tier.

Not so Christopher O'Riley's White Tie/Mesa Bluemoon release, Out of My Hands, which includes 12 first-rate classical piano transcriptions of songs taken from the repertoire of pop and rock artists such as Radiohead, Portishead, Pink Floyd, Elliott Smith, the Smiths, Nirvana, and others. It is a challenging, moving, and a wholly idiomatic experience from the standpoint of the piano; there are even some technical innovations, such as the antiphonal exchanges between extreme registers of the keyboard in O'Riley's transcription of Portishead's "The Rip." There are many moments here that fire up the imagination, energize and inspire, like the long, Bill Evans-like prelude that opens O'Riley's set of variations on Pink Floyd's "Us and Them," or the thundering power and discord of O'Riley's recasting of Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box." This isn't Arthur Fiedler & the Boston Pops doing tunes from Saturday Night Fever; O'Riley really goes for it, and his versions of these numbers "rock" even though he doesn't have a drummer or bass player to support him in this courageous and dazzling high-wire act without the benefit of a net. Moreover, Out of My Hands provides the same emotional depth and intellectual stimulation that one might come to expect from a first-class, standard classical piano recital as O'Riley's attitude about this "non-serious" music is as reverent as it would be for something of Liszt's or a Brahms' Intermezzo. Out of My Hands has every sign of being a landmark disc that will be referenced repeatedly within the context of its time, and in the future, so don't miss out. It is urgently recommended that anyone with ears get within earshot of Out of My Hands, as it resets the bar for the conversation twixt classical and popular music. The recording, made with a special microphone design that situates multiple mikes within the body of the instrument, is likewise spectacular, not to mention good and loud, not a property you often get with classical-anything.