Aaron Wyanski’s Schoenberg: Drei Klavierstucke, Op.11

05/20/2024

[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts music review of Aaron Wyanski’s Schoenberg: Drei Klavierstucke, Op.11.

Aaron Wyanski is a composer, pianist and music theorist from Maine. This is not his first exploration of atonality, he holds a continuing fascination with dissonance and the illusion so of continuum. I’ll admit that this exquisite, intricate deep dive into atonal music is a little outside of my wheelhouse, but I’m happy to be open to something new. At least new to me, although the theory of atonal music is not a new one. Arnold Schönberg’s atonality theory is one of the most influential in modern music composition. His music from the early 20th century led the way to jazz and therefore almost every musical genre since. It’s all about dissonance…and the theory that every single note played has, in fact, all notes in it. So when you hear one, you hear them all.

A NoHo Arts music review of Aaron Wyanski’s Schoenberg: Drei Klavierstucke, Op.11. It’s wild and poetic, logical and surprising, spiky and recognisably organic. And I absolutely loved it.

This revelation allowed for musical experimentation and unlocked the precept of harmonic overtone. Basically, giving us the infinity of music. And since we are now being told that everything in the universe, from flower to dying star has an electric field that can be actually converted into sound and reacts to our presence and its place in the space it occupies, it’s not hard to understand why we can then make the leap that everything could also have a consciousness. It seems logical then to assign music to that consciousness since music is really math and math is everything.

Wow. Once you start down this path it’s hard to stop. This truly incredible music takes us to that place where you step off the road well traveled and find your own way forward. It’s jazz of course, but not quite what I expected and probably not what you would either.

It’s wild and poetic, logical and surprising, spiky and recognisably organic. And I absolutely loved it.

So something that I would never choose to listen to became beguiling, transportive and familiar in the sense that I recognized myself somewhere in the mix…you never know what might happen if you listen to something new…it just might change everything.