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Harry Pepl * 1945  † 2005

Press archive

What was written and broadcast about Harry Pepl: reviews, portraits, interviews and obituaries, with summary and source. The originals are protected by copyright and kept in the archive; we provide them to researchers and the press on request.

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  1. 1996 · Other

    PAO Records (CD-Booklet, CD 10140-2): Booklettext zu „Flow“

    Stephen Ferguson

    English liner notes by the pianist and composer Stephen Ferguson for Harry Pepl’s solo piano album “Flow”, recorded digitally in a single take on Sunday, 10 March 1996, in the Brahms Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. Ferguson calls Pepl “a musician who hears”, who immediately translates what he hears into music from his own fingers and his own voice; on the guitar he is “one of Europe’s undisputed jazz masters”, on the piano a virtual stranger, which is exactly what gives the music its magic. He hears “a dream played awake”, a pure music played without technique, only with musicality and flow, a response to the big black Steinway in the acoustics of the Musikverein, and in it the pianistic heroes Gould, Jarrett, Debussy, Cecil Taylor, Bach, Schoenberg and Schubert. Pepl has the jazz man’s joy of real-time composition; the titles are chosen for personal reasons (childhood, “High Noon”, Gould). It closes with the master of the strings as “a masterly novice full of music”. The booklet also names Ferguson as editor (with Daniel Pepl) and as translator of Georg Pepl’s text. The text is available as a text PDF for signed-in users.

    his very own instrument–the guitar–where he is one of Europe’s undisputed jazz masters

    Harry Pepl is a musician who hears. He has that seldom gift–to immediately translate what he hears into music coming from his own fingers, into music coming from his own voice.

    It is a dream played awake, full of snatches of music, gestures, spaces.

    he is simply unafraid of any musical task, and has the jazz man’s joy of real time composition.

    Let us simply enjoy the novelty and richness of this master of the strings becoming a novice at the keyboard, a masterly novice full of music, in a fast stream of rhythms and thematic lines, flowing.