The celebrated Canadian pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico has collaborated with composer and producer David Jaeger on a number of recordings over many decades. Games of the Night Wind is their third on the Navona Records imprint alone. The devotion of the pianist to the composer’s music is, predictably, personal. It speaks of long acquaintance with these works on offer, the 12 Nocturnes by Jaeger, and you need only sample the first set of four to hear how lovingly the pianist caresses the music that gives it a unique raptness.
While the 12 Nocturnes may be the centrepiece of the recording, particularly the tenth which lends the album its name, and the other nocturnes are spectacular as well. For example, the enormously uplifting second, A Blessing, the sixth, Forget the Day and the ninth Lament for the People of Ukraine, are all especially impactful. With Jaeger’s nocturnes we are treated to the composer’s sublime grasp of the form, and enthralled by Petrowska Quilico’s performance.
Her treatment of the other pieces is absolutely scintillating too. Tom Takemitsu’ s Les Yeux Clos is other-worldly-ethereal, and Henryk Görecki’s Intermezzo is longlimbed and beautiful. Meanwhile Gorecki’ s superb, crepuscular Lullaby is evocative (as an angular contrafact) of Mozart’s Twelve Variations on Ah vous dirai-je, Maman, albeit darker in colour.
Jaeger also gets high marks as session producer of this recording.