Hi-Res Downloads

96kHz/24-bit, FLAC; ECM 478 0266 (supplied by www.highresaudio.com)

Possibly all you need to know about this album is that ‘Glauco Venier plays sonorous sculptures built by the artists Harry Bertoja and Giorgio Celiberti’, so if that description sets you up to expect something extremely arty, you’re definitely on the right track. In fact Venier plays piano, gongs, bells and metals on this programme of self-composed pieces and reinterpretations of pieces from the classical canon, and the result falls somewhere between delicately contemplative and a harmless wash of sound that passes the listener by. Part of the reason is that much of the content here sounds very similar, and one really needs to work hard to hear the shimmers of percussion and the like behind the piano figures. It’s all very subtle and precise and beautifully recorded, as PM notes in his lab report [below], but I’m just not sure it’ll bear repeated listening. AE

Sound Quality: 85%

Hi-Fi News Lab Report

Blessed with low levels of extraneous noise, this 96kHz rendering allows the glass-like harmonics of the ‘sonorous sculptures’ played by Glauco Venier to persist at levels as low as –70dBFs. It’s an excellent use of a 24-bit range! PM