I was a member of the jury that awarded the press prize to Fabian Müller at the 2013 Busoni piano competition in Bolzano. The 23-year-old German won two other awards in that competition as well, and how he failed to take the overall first prize remains a bit of a mystery. But it’s very good to find the very positive impression Müller made three years ago borne out on his debut disc, a recital sequence built around the impressions of the natural world.
Müller studied with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich in Cologne, and his assured way with 20th-century music in the Bolzano competition and here, in his thrillingly energised performances of Messiaen’s L’Alouette Calandrelle (The Greater Short-toed Lark) from Catalogue d’Oiseaux and Bartók’s suite Out of Doors, shows what he absorbed from them. More substantial works provide the frame.
Ravel’s complete Miroirs shows his way with keyboard colour and texture, especially in the long melodic tendrils of Oiseaux Tristes and the static beauties of La Vallée des Cloches, while Beethoven’s Pastoral Sonata Op 28, which on the disc seems to grow out of the final chord of the Messiaen, is a model of good taste; it doesn’t put a foot wrong.
