De-Formation: Second Piano Variations

Galás’s legend rests on her formidable voice, one of the most powerful instruments of modern musical art. The shock of hearing her sing, whether she’s stretching octaves across her own compositions, or reinterpreting the history of song through meticulously researched live settings, tends to overshadow her similarly peerless piano playing. De-formation: Second Piano Variations is a rare treat, a Galás solo performance from Paris, France, where she reworks the piece’s first ‘variation,’ a 2020 recording that abstracted out from a prior work, a setting of German writer Georg Heym’s Das Fieberspital. Galás’s re-composition here reconnects her with her roots in modern classical — the sturm und drang she coaxes from the guts of the instrument has me thinking of Ligeti, Xenakis. But most impressive is the way you can hear the geography of Galás’s hands in the way she plays, her navigation of the piano’s 88 tuned drums, with force and fury, but always grace, and eloquence.