The History of Photography in Sound is a score of such rich content that its five-and-a-half hours duration does not seem too long....
It would be difficult to over-emphasise the importance of Ian Pace's mastery of this daunting score and convincing interpretation of the music in his complete performance at RAM, and he is to be congratulated on a monumental achievement. His CDs of The History of Photography in Sound are eagerly awaited."
John Warnaby Seen & Heard, Music on the Web
"Every bar of the five and a half hour composition for solo piano, History of Photography in Sound, shows that Michael Finnissy has snubbed pressures to become a 'career composer'. As pianist Ian Pace says in his programme book, Finnissy is everything a British composer is not allowed to be - provocative, challenging and passionate - and there's perhaps no other composer working in Britain today who has the artistic vision and philosophical equipment to bring off such an audacious project...
Naturally such idealistic music requires a very special sort of performer
and Ian Pace's understanding goes beyond mere interpretation into a far
deeper relationship with - and relish for - the incredible demands of the
work... There is nothing quite like it in British music, and being saturated in such a rich and unique music for a whole day was a privilege."
Philip Clark The Wire
New music is a hard sell at any time, never mind a piece of this scale from a composer with a reputation for dense, dissonant, and downright difficult music. In the event, it proved a largely uplifting experience.
The music was varied and approachable, if a little repetitious, with plenty of light and shade and a great deal of passion. Pace was an utterly committed advocate, drawing on virtuoso pianism and immense stamina across three taxing sessions. Finnissy (and the pianist in his lengthy programme booklet) piles a mighty political and theoretical structure on to the music, but it emerged more as a compendium of pianistic and compositional possibilities.
It consists of 19 separate "chapters", each pretty much independent, but linked by musical and thematical strands, and incorporates loads of references to other composers, from Alkan, Bach, and Beethoven through to Wagner and Xenakis, plus spirituals, blues, African music, and more. Some were delivered as direct pastiche, and others buried in the deeper musical textures. The only place where the ostensible subject of photography seemed closely matched to the music was a section inspired by Muybridge's famous pictures capturing human and animal motion.
The Herald
"Ian Pace played a demanding lunch-time piano recital with items by Ferneyhough & Kagel as well as works by both Lachenmann and Rihm (his Nachstudie, which is newly released on Kairos 0012122KAI), all clearly characterised with scrupulous accuracy and beautiful tone quality, by way of encore throwing off Ligeti's 10th Study like a mere bagatelle."
Peter Grahame Woolf, Seen & Heard, Music on the Web
"On a mesuré ainsi des contrastes frappants dans la prestation d'Ian Pace. La musique si parlante de Dusapin se situant aux antipodes du narcissisme virtuose d'une sonate lisztienne (1976) de Sciarrino, comme de l'impressionnisme insaisissable de Michael Finnissy dans Snowdrift (1972). En revanche, la fulgurance toujours renouvelée d'Evryali (1973) de Xenakis et la générosité du Book of Elements (1977) de James Dillon, cycle de miniatures et réservoir d'idées, sont des compagnons autrement féconds.... Ian Pace est un pianiste extremement brillant.
Journal d'Alsace
"In the first recital by Ian Pace Études 2 and 4 were played in the context of a typically thoughtful programme which ended with a spellbinding performance of Evryali by Iannis Xenakis.
Russell Tandy, UMP News
The oldest work was Michael Finnissy's Snowdrift (1972), which is driven by contrasts between mobile and static material and, even more, by the abrupt cuttingoff and juxtaposition of ideas. The most recent piece was also the most extravagant in the way it defies formalistic concepts.
Brian Ferneyhough's Opus Contra Naturam is part of his opera project Shadowtime, where it accompanies a calculated-chaotic silent film of recognisable images from past and present. Ian Pace declaimed the barely meaningful text as he grappled with the extraordinarily difficult and barely coherent piano part. It was impressive stuff, even though it lived up to the anagram of the composer's name (reported by a friend), "he fry brain enough".
Ian Pace showed a remarkable control of rhythm and colour, and in music which presses pianism towards its limits, he and the Petrof piano seemed as one. Richard Emsley's For Piano 10 was written for this musician to explore differing types of touch.
The concert's highlight was Harrison Birtwistle's Harrison's Clocks (Nos 3-5), which layer differing motifs and rhythms throughout the keyboard. As Pace's wellwritten and insightful programme notes explained, they are studies in virtuosity for the composer as well as the performer. The clarity and energy of the playing lived up to that purpose.
Martin Adams, The Irish Times
Xenakis' Mists (1981) has enjoyed the advocacy of pianists such as Roger Woodward and Claude Helffer. Pace saw the opening as less dynamic than most other interpreters, saving his vehemence for its recurrente - he seemed very at home in this segmented, gestural world. Three studies by Ligeti gave the opportunity for both virtuoso display (the mechanistic Der Zauberlehrling, the toccata-like L'escalier du diable) and the reflective, Debussy-like En suspens, the latter continued in Cage's pointillist Étude Australe No. 10.
It was indeed brave to programme Finnissy's Piano Concerto No. 4 at the end of such an exhausting programme, but Pace rose magnificently to its demands. A 'Hammerklavier' for the twentieth century (played here in Finnissy's 1996 revision, which is dedicated to Pace), its explosive character seems like Xenakis-on-heat, stockpiling musical layers as if they are going out of fashion (although this is not to imply that Pace was ignorant of its more delicate moments). Small wonder the reception was rapturous (and deservedly so)."
Colin Clarke, Seen & Heard, Music on the Web
"Grand Hotel... brought out the genuine virtuoso in the British pianist."
Ewa Przybylowicz, Ruch Muzyczny
" Dagegen blühte er in Tippets Sonate Nr. 1 parächtig auf, spielte die aberwitzigen Rhythmisierungen und entfaltete die ruhige "Oase", wie er das "Lento" der dritten Sonate bezeichnete, bereits zuvor im "Andante". Pace ist ein grosser Techniker. In erster Linie wegen seines präzisen Spiels, aber auch hinsichtlich klanglicher Gestaltung, wie er in Tippetts dritter Sonate beeindruckend vorführte. Er rückte sie in erstaunliche Nähe zur anschilessenden "Appassionata", die er auswendig viel entspannter und überzeugender interpretierte als op. 31."
Felicitas Zink, Bonner Rundschau
" Dann jedoch zwei Sonaten von Michael Tippett, dem kürzlich verstorbenen britishcen Traditionsmodernisten....Ian Pace war in seinem Element. Ob im Lenton der dritten Sonate, dem er mit dezenter Klangmagie begegnete, ob im ironisch gebrochenen Kopfsatz ober im folkloristisch strudelnden Rondo der ersten Sonate - Page legte Interpretationen vor, die man getrost als mustegültig bezeichnen durfte."
Carsten Kretschmann, General Auszeiger
"In Anton Webern's Variation für Klavier op. 27 zeigte sich Pace als analytischer Interpret, der Strukturen enthüllte und bei aller Virtuosität selbst die zerklüftsetsten Melodien mit einer grossen Gestaltungskraft bändigte."'
Guido Krawinkel, General Auszeiger