New York Études

Jeff Beal’s atmospheric soundtrack scores, including those for House of Cards and Ugly Betty, have touched a vast global audience. The New York Etudes grew from the composer’s diagnosis with multiple sclerosis in 2007 and the therapeutic effects on his condition of the daily ritual of improvising at the piano. Beal, who moved to New York City in 2021, created and recorded the album’s 10 pieces at home in Manhattan. The results amount to a gentle hymn to life. Their cumulative power is intensified by the meditative stillness and concentration of “Riverside Revelations,” “I’m With You (for Rosemary),” and the haunting “The More Things Change,” and enhanced by the exquisite “Corridors of Calm,” a mantra-like progression of sonorous piano chords.