ETHIOPIQUES 21: PIANO SOLO

This is a rather wonderful and brilliant collection of solo piano pieces from an obviously extremely gifted composer / player who displays a unique style and highly personal musical vision . Even many of the titles of the 16 featured songs have inspired , interesting titles such as 'A Young Girl's Complaint' ,' The Last Tears of a Deceased' , 'Presentiment' and 'Tenkou ! Why Feel Sorry ? '.It is difficult , if not impossible, for me to choose particular favourites but I have an affection for 'Evening Breeze' as this is the song that first alerted me to the need to check this album out after I heard this particular piece being played on a late night radio station ( IE Lyric FM's 'The Blue of the Night').The music here is virtually impossible to accurately categorize which speaks volumes for the uniquely ,dare I say it, idiosyncratic nature that it possesses . At times the pieces remind me of Chopin's Nocturnes and sometimes the work of Debussy is evoked in my mind .However, there are other times were other strongly diverse and interestingly puzzling musical approaches have also been employed and adapted to great effect.I have found this delightful and intriguing album to be a real 'grower' and I recommend it heartily to anyone who is interested in listening to something refreshingly different from the norm .

Loved thi8s., The mu7sic is very uplifting and I love the sound she makers- unlike any other piano solo i have heard- and should be as famous as Eiunidi. Recommending it to my friends.

Interesting music but not the best selection of her work. However as her music is hard to get this is a reasonable introduction.

Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou(b. 1923) aka 'The honky tonk nun' was born into a noble Ethiopian family and became a nun in the nation's Orthodox Church.I was bowled over by her solo piano piece 'The Homeless Wanderer' when I heard it on BBC Radio 3 and immediately ordered this CD.The 16 memorable solo piano pieces were recorded in 1963(tracks 1-9), 1970(tracks 10-12) & 1996(tracks 13-16).The 74 minutes of haunting, meditative music has jazz, blues & classical influences and deserves to be more widely known.

This is well over an hour of solo piano music. I tend to find solo piano a bit dull after a short while, but not in this case. This is not classical music, not jazz, just lilting, atmospheric melodies. I own a lot of the discs in the "ethiopiques" series. They all contain great music, but this is the slowest and most the most beautiful of them all.

A lovely CD, that defies all and any attempts at description. It's like Messiaen's female alter ego tripping out in meltingly hot Ethiopian heat, after hearing Mary Lou Williams's improvised doodling on random modal note-clusters. Mesmerising, unique, enchanting.

This is love at first hear. I was so moved by the clear, brave and beautiful tunes the first time I heard it. It made me went online straightaway to find out who those lovely tunes belong to and to buy it immediately. I can now only be glad that I come across Tsegue Maryam's beautiful music

J'ai découvert l'existence de cette interprète-compositeur en écoutant " Mother's love" à la radio.L'écoute de l'album en entier a confirmé mes premières impressions : c'est une musique à nulle autre pareille, sortie de nulle-part (rythme, harmonies...), qui transporte celui qui l'écoute dans un monde extraordinaire en le berçant.Je le recommande sans la moindre hésitation.