Lubomyr Melnyk

Emperor Joseph II famously accused Mozart of putting too many notes in The Marriage of Figaro. One can only imagine what he would have made of Lubomyr Melnyk's nineteen notes a second, a dexterous ability central to his compositions. The speed and complexity of what Melnyk calls continuous music makes for a lush, heady sound that is mesmeric, involving and occasionally close to overwhelming. Before we got to that sound, however, Melnyk opened the evening with an extended chat.

His unexpurgated views on Spotify and youtube were, somewhat bizarrely, laid bare as a sort of teaser trailer for the merchandise on sale in the foyer. Digital sound in general came in for a hammering - does he not know that's how his CDs work? - as did the size of modern speakers and the height of the stage on which he was performing. It was all a little bewildering, so that when he finally sat down at the piano, it was a great relief.

He really should let his music do the talking for him, as the opening piece was an astonishing showcase for his skills, not least as it was apparently improvised. Relying heavily on repetition and sustain, his fingers danced across the keyboard, producing a ambient soundscape that was both dense and enveloping. Slowly, but inexorably, a melody emerged, skittering over the surface of an ever evolving soundscape, like a gadfly fluttering into life. It was all quite brilliantly done.

More chat followed, largely outlining the cleverness of what he was doing. There was a pop at classically trained pianists, an exposition of his revolutionary performance technique, and an illustration of how tai chi training had enabled him to play his piano 50% faster than anyone else. Quite why he has this fixation on speed is a mystery to me, but it’s obviously something that he feels sets him apart. I imagine he is a man rarely burdened by self-doubt.

The first formal composition of the evening was Butterfly, a work Melnyk considers a viable entry point for acolytes in the audience. Unusually, the sheet music for the work was on sale, and the piano players amongst us were invited to snap it up, take it home, and have a go. "You don't have to play it as fast as me" he assured, which is just as well, as what followed was an extraordinary display. The piece begun with a rhythmic left hand, gradually creating a repetitive arpeggio, while the right played delicate chords. I simply don't know how he played so fast, while managing to add an interwoven melody. I suspect comparisons with Steve Reich would annoy him - he didn't seem to have much time for minimalists either - but they are clear and unavoidable. More surprising was the increasingly rhapsodic melody that brought to mind the work of Ludovico Einaudi or Robert John Godfrey. It made for a pleasing, if somewhat eccentric, cocktail of styles.

The final, and most ambitious, work of the evening was Windmills. This was the most developed of the three, a complex tone poem following the lifecycle of a windmill at the mercy of the elements. It was preceded by a lengthy introduction explaining a narrative than loosely mirrored a Disney short, The Old Windmill, though Melnyk has clearly taken the story and run with it. The now familiar digressions were present and correct. We got to hear about transcendentalism, nature and Twin Peaks, after which I drifted off. It’s usually the preserve of the folk music scene to prattle on interminably but this was a similarly painful experience. I do wish more performers would realise how brutally they break the spell of their wonderful music by nattering inanely. In fairness, Melnyk seems aware of this weakness, at one point clasping his hands over his mouth to shut himself up.

The piece itself takes over half an hour to develop, working is way up through low, rumbling notes until the windmill approaches full tilt. Melnyk reaches the peak of the work's intensity in the central twenty minutes, arpeggiated notes coming in so fast they're impossible to distinguish. The windmill ultimately collapses under the sheer force of the storm, mirrored by the challenge of the increasingly discordant rephrasing of the music. Ultimately, it finds peace in the release of death, expressed through a lengthy coda giving thanks for what the Windmill had, and surely by metaphorical extension, what we all have had, rather than a lament for what was lost.

It is a sentiment that ran through the evening, and I imagine it runs through all his work. This was a performance that was part recital, part rumination on the folly of this world, and part religious philosophy lecture. Eccentric, occasionally indulgent and frequently brilliant, Lubomyr Melnyk proved to be a fascinating and singular artist.