Echoes Of Life (Deluxe Edition)

German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott’s Echoes of Life was a 2021 release born of COVID isolation, and focused on the music which meant most to her in life. Two years later, Ott adds further tracks to make this deluxe edition, expanding the overall listening time by 24 minutes. Chopin’s Preludes still form the spine of the album, but to Ott’s absorbingly poetic account of the Op. 28 cycle she now adds equally alluring performances of two more of Chopin’s completed Preludes. A couple of dreamy pieces by the Irish composer John Field, a major influence on Chopin, are also added for context, played on both an upright and a grand piano. J.S. Bach’s Prelude in C Major gets the same double-take treatment, and Gonzales, Silvestrov, Ligeti and Rota are among the other composers in this intriguingly programmed recital.