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Stories & Soundscapes brings together two complementary ways of listening: music as narrative, and music as environment. At its core, the album reflects pianist Cathal Breslin’s central artistic focus as a pianist: a desire to explore new ways of storytelling, while bringing together different sound worlds, within the same shared musical space.
Born in Derry, Northern Ireland, on the same day as Chopin (March 1st), Breslin has felt a particular affinity with the composer’s voice throughout his life. The album places Chopin’s Four Ballades at its heart in order to unfold alongside Irish composers John Field and Linda Buckley, reflecting Breslin’s personal journey across time, place, and sound.
The first half of the album is devoted to music that unfolds as narrative: works that, while abstract, carry an unmistakable sense of drama, memory, and emotional journey. John Field, the Dublin-born pianist credited as the originator of the Nocturne, stands at the threshold of Romantic piano writing. His Nocturne No. 2 in C minor reveals a darker, more searching expressive voice, while the Nocturne No. 5 in B-flat major offers lyric grace and serenity. These works resonate not only as precursors to Chopin, but as expressions of an Irish musical voice whose quiet innovations reshaped the piano’s expressive language.
Chopin’s Four Ballades form the emotional summit of the album. Composed over nearly a decade, they trace Chopin’s artistic journey from youthful brilliance to profound late-style darkness and introspection. The First Ballade in G minor erupts with urgency and dramatic volatility. The Second Ballade in F major juxtaposes pastoral calm with sudden, terrifying upheaval. The Third Ballade in A-flat major offers luminous, flowing lyricism, while the Fourth Ballade in F minor stands as one of Chopin’s most complex creations—a work of astonishing contrapuntal density and emotional inevitability, unfolding with tragic restraint before reaching a shattering conclusion.
The album’s second half turns from narrative to environment, and from story to space, with works for piano and electronics by Linda Buckley. Fridur (2015), conceived during a stay in Iceland overlooking Lake Laugarvatn and Mount Hekla, merges piano and electronics to create a sense of suspended time, where stillness and expansiveness coexist. The title comes from the Icelandic word for peace or calm.
Water Witch (2022), presented here in its premiere recording, draws on Celtic folklore and Buckley’s childhood experiences growing up beside the Atlantic Ocean on the south coast of Ireland. Central to the work is the figure of the Muireartach—white-haired and blue-skinned, the embodiment of the storm-raging sea—whose power can only be undone by calm waters. Hypnotic textures, surging waves of sound, and moments of eerie stillness evoke a world where beauty and danger are inseparable.
As Breslin shares in his liner notes, “From the salons of the early nineteenth century to the immersive environments of the present day, this recording invites the listener not only to hear music, but to inhabit it: as story unfolding across time, and as soundscape in which to dwell.”
John Field
Nocturne No. 2 in C Minor, H 25 (1814) (4:04)
Frédéric Chopin
Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23 (1835) (10:05)
Ballade No. 2 in F Major, Op. 38 (1836-9) (8:16)
Ballade No. 3 in A-Flat Major, Op. 47 (1841) (8:07)
Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52 (1842) (12:36)
John Field
Nocturne No. 5 in B-Flat Major, H 37 (1817) (3:17)
Linda Buckley
Fridur for piano and electronics (2015) (12:09)
Water Witch for piano and electronics (2022)* (15:55)
*World Premiere Recording
