Debra Richards: Like the other artists portrayed in Rebel Spirits II, Piotr Orzechowski aka Pianohooligan showed talent and a fiercely original mind at an early age. By his twenties he'd won competitions and awards and had a clarity about his intention for music-making. There is one comment he made that particularly stood out to me. He said, “I want to revive the spirit of jazz. Step away from academic music. I am awaiting a confrontation.”
This is crucial, Piotr knows that at the same time as honouring the history of jazz, standing on the shoulders of these jazz originators, it is vital that jazz is a living, breathing music. It is not a museum piece. It requires artists to have something they need to say and to deliver it in a way that is genuine. Genuine to that artist. Real for that artist. And he has applied that to whatever genre he has touched on.
It's easy to see through his discography that Piotr has allowed his natural curiosity to lead the way. He has released albums such as Bach Rewrite, in collaboration with Marcin Masecki, and Experiment: Penderecki, a tribute intended to renew the accomplished work of Krzysztof Penderecki. He has collaborated with musicians from Ecuador, Mexico and Spain and has played with significant artists such as the American composer, Philip Glass, aswell as establishing his own High Definition Quartet.
It is another beacon of the Polish arts, Adam Mickiewicz whose play, Dziady or the Forefather's Eve, that lit a fuse for Piotr and it's his album entitled, Dziady that he speaks about in this interview. You'll hear why he felt drawn to Part II of this eminent work published in 1823 which follows characters in the Lithuanian countryside preparing to conjure spirits from the dead. Piotr's description is so lucid that you can feel the frisson of fear and expectation.
Piotr outlines how he decided to differentiate between the earthly world and the supernatural in his music, and as well as the whole piece, 'Preparations', we hear an excerpt of the supernatural 'Little Angels' (with electronics by the renowned William Basinski). The interview is a great opportunity to peep into Piotr's creative mindset and how he instinctively uses his own life experiences to deeply connect with the story.
Just a word about Dziady - this poetic drama written in four parts is a symbol of European Romanticism, particularly in Poland, where it was not only a statement about the Romantic belief in individualism, the importance of emotion, and folklore, but due to periods of time when it was banned, it also represents freedom, a freedom to feel, and be able to question. In some ways it's a thoughtful metaphor for the work of Piotr Orzechowski and the other artists in the Rebel Spirits series.
Piotr Orzechowski: My name is Piotr Orzechowski. I'm a pianist and I create music.
For me romanticism is simply the opposition to a world that is interpreted from outside. It emphasizes the fact that valuable content is born inside the person as something disordered, sometimes chaotic and difficult to interpret. Dziady is kind of a brief lecture on the human spirit. It’s actually deeply romantic in that sense.
The story for me was just about what was going on in people's minds while participating in the ritual. My goal was to catch this specific moment when they reach out to something unknown, they go through all those mental states deeper and deeper, until they reach something they were not expecting. And those are the processes which, in a way, I find similar to what I do in music, when I compose or mainly when I improvise. I felt this enigmatic relationship between my own creative process and what I felt when I read the descriptions of the ecstasies of the people gathered in the chapel. So, on many levels, this story was intriguing for me and tempting.
In my eyes Dziady is a very simple story, easily convertible into the language of music. You have this extremely intimate atmosphere of the chapel, repetitions, and symmetry of events with a specific rhythm. Probably, this attractive element of the story was this gigantic difference between what's real and what's not real. I invited a few electronic musicians to represent the supernatural beings which contrast with the real sphere, represented by jazz musicians, by acoustic music.
From the beginning, I had a few artists in mind which I listened to a lot and which I knew would perfectly fit my concept. I think the most obvious choice was Robert Rich, then came William Basinski, next were Christian Fennesh and Krzytsof Knittel, Igor Box from Scalpel. Now, it was just a question of assigning the appropriate roles to everyone. Finally, William Basinski created the first ghost called Little Angel or Little Angels. Christian took the heaviest one, which is called the Lord and the nocturnal Birds, Igor portrayed the third Phantom of the Girl. And the last one, the suicidal one was assigned to Robert. Then it was a very intuitive and intimate process. I was basically portraying my own idea of the events during this ritual.
Preparations illustrates what happens right before the ritual begins. This was actually not described in the story. I added it because it was important for me to expand those moments that happened right before the main events. In my mind, I saw this group of people gathering from various corners of the village in an atmosphere of anxiety, excitement, maybe also fear. I remember those mysterious moments when I was a scout, walking through the forest, in the middle of the night, to prepare a fire or something. It was something I could relate to. And I found it relevant to the whole drama. So the first segment is all about walking together from your cozy home. Together, you enter a small, dark room - the chapel. For me, here music is all about people's internal thoughts. You have this submission element, which is: repetitions and aside you have anxiety and uncontrolled outbursts of fear caused by imagining what might happen next. Everything happens in the dark and the imagination is left to itself. Finally, you close the door for good. Inside you immediately can feel more calm and comforted because of the lights being turned on. And you have to prepare the whole room for what will happen. People get busy preparing a place for themselves, closing the curtains and slowly quieting down. When silence falls, the guide of the group, the sorcerer introduces the right atmosphere and the first spirit is called.
I imagined the group guide instructs with a collective imagination. He scares them and provokes them to intense expression of fear. That's why at this point I use some folk motifs which are fused with the repetitions that represents participation in the ritual. The sorcerer needs it to take full control over them and now change the mood completely forcing them to be quiet and listen. Old melodies are still playing in your head. You feel the previous state but slowly everything fades away. You tune into the unknown.You let go. You leave yourself. You start to believe whatever comes into your mind. You are waiting for the ghost.
My name is Piotr Orzechowski, and this is Preparations the first piece of Dziady by High Definition quartet