Album Review: The Vienna Sessions from Markus Burger

Album:  The Vienna Sessions
Artist:  Markus Burger
Label:  Challenge Records
Website: www.markusburger.com

An ardent storyteller on the piano, Markus Burger strings together harmonious tales in his piano arrangements enlivening his latest release The Vienna Sessions from Challenge Records.  His recent trip to Vienna, Austria proved to be an inspiring sojourn that ignited creative impulses and sparked a surge of poetic prose on the piano keys.  Burger's meanderings form intertwining rings of melodic swirls, darting flickers, searing soars, and protracted lobes.

The babbling brook personified by Burger's keys trickling across "Along the Creek" infuse a meditative atmosphere in the track, and embodies a Baroque-imbued vibe along the frolicking flicker of his keys ambling along "A Knight's Tale."  Each unfold into a harmonious arrangement that keeps the listener spellbound.  The dulcet strokes of Burger's keys evolve into glittery swells along "Cafe Mozart," spurring listeners imagination, evoking the inner chambers of their minds.

The somber mood illuminating "Cibelle's Lullaby" is scored by swirling silhouettes, floating with a poetry in motion glide.  The lamenting tone of Burger's keys emote a deep sorrow along "Doom and Gloom," glinting inner musings of grief.  The stream of consciousness in the melodic reflections being portrayed are palpable.   This wavelength of sorrow, grief and hazy, haunting arias continue through Burger's tracks "Fall Days," "Afternoon in Vienna," and "Silent Lament," inducing a swathe of intense retrospection in the recording.  It is as though Burger is besieging the listener to hear his solemn tales as his correspondence emits a spiritual message.

A graduate in jazz piano and composition from the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany, Markus Burger is a prolific and ardent storyteller on piano.  Earning a graduate degree in piano performance from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, his improvisations on piano possess a melodic peal that is spellbinding.

Musicians:
Markus Burger - piano