Ogura Plays Ogura
Miharu Ogura
SWEDEN THANATOSIS PRODUKTION THT30 C.D. (2024)
Japanese composer/pianist and now Frankfurt resident Mirahu Ogura‘s lightbulb moment came during teenagerdom while participating in a Munich-based masterclass that focused on Karl Heinz Stockhausen’s “Klavierstücke”. After that, with the bit now firmly between her teeth, her first attempt to play “Klavierstücke 1 – 11” was performed in Tokyo in 2021 and later that same year in Stockholm. The latter performance also featured on her highly lauded “Ogura plays Stockhausen” c.d. (on Thanatosis Records/2023), in which her approach had been compared to Aloys Kontarsky and David Tudor. High praise indeed.
That bar remains equally high when it comes down to the “Ogura plays…” release when she takes on a more exposed, buck-stops-here stance by crafting a five-strong set of self-penned compositions with a Fazioli F212, the grand piano of choice. With its roomy, stand-alone melodics, emphasising the shadows cast by their inevitable decay, “Pas” was initially pencilled in as a prelude to the more physically demanding “Labyrinthe”, making one realise that the acoustic space of Göteborg’s ‘Studio Epidemin’ played a major role in both pieces. “…zwischen…” written for a specific one-off recital was created as a kind of time-travelling bridge between works by J.S. Bach (1685-1750) and Swiss oboist, conductor/composer Heinz Holliger (1939 – ). The improvised side of things nicely complementing the more structured/tightly buttoned moves of the classical and contempo-classical schools of thought.
Again, like “Labyrinthe”, “Sillage de Lignes” was a prize-winning entrant at ‘The Orléans International Piano Competition’. I just have to let the accompanying promotionals have their head here (and go over mine). They state Miharu held those slow-moving lines within the middle register by employing a certain something called the ‘Sostenuto Pedal’. No, me neither, but what I am more aware of is that Johannes Lundberg’s recording/mixing/mastering prowess, especially here, really does enhance the smallest of gestures to the max. The closing and most recently crafted piece; 2023’s “Nijimi” consists of four large sections and a coda, where its patterns of repeated chordage suggest a series of muzzy/vague pitches in which deep thinkers such as Messiaen and Ligeti are safely parachuted in as worthy namedrops.