La Scena Musicale
Volume 23-7, June/July/August 2018, p. 84
The identity of the composer of these 20 songs for 2 pianos is quite mysterious. We know very little about Mia Brentano, except her music which is now accessible to us by this first album. We hear influences of pop, film music, classical music of course, but also jazz. The pieces offer very different soundscapes, beginning with the calm and sweetness of a melo- dy on the piano, which carries our imagination to the edge of a lake; it is also what the cover and the title of the album suggest: “Hidden Sea,” an allusion to the peaceful island of Hiddensee between Germany and Denmark. A few pieces later, we are immersed in a café or saloon atmosphere, punctuated by the rags of a piano bar. Brentano draws her inspira- tion from American music, including George Gershwin. It’s a little bit like saying that this album is a mosaic of musical styles. To meet the challenge, the composer was able to count on Benyamin Nuss and Max Nyberg, two versatile young pianists, equally at home in clas- sical music as in jazz. The last 4 pieces, added to the first 20, are the result of their improvi- sations and complete the musical project of Mia Brentano, who remains attached to the music written on score. “Hidden Sea” will relax you, but also give you, thanks to its fren- zied rhythm, a smile on the lips. JB [Justin Bernard]