Fanfare of Colours – Little Meister’s (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

It’s pretty impressive how, with such small lifts in dynamics and pace, with just the most minuscule changes in tone and temperament, Little Meister’s is able to alter the nature and direction of the music. His is a delicate and quiet world, for the most part, and most of the music he makes garners words around it like understated, minimalist, spacious and restrained. Fanfare of Colours is undoubtedly all of those things. But being in such a delicate musical place means listening more intently and focusing more fully on the small nuances and musical minutiae that would be lost in more animated and louder pieces become crucial cornerstones.

This Fanfare of Colours that he describes via this delicate and graceful dance across the keys, presumably improvised as his usual modus operani, is all about such nuance; the dynamic range is small and so subtlety and suppleness reign supreme. To some, the music might suggest the interplay of pastels and washes, subdued hues and muted shades, such is its understatement, but I prefer to adopt the “Butterfly Effect of Musical Subtlety” here. 

In the same way that the adage posits that a small change at one end of a process can result in dramatic effects at the other, I see these small changes in pace and poise as being more than able to describe vibrancy and contrast, that the most subtle change on the keyboard relating to a vivid neon dance, a dayglo river of colour dancing before our eyes, a masterful array of visual theatrics, the colour palette writ large.

I guess it is all about how you let your mind interpret things. To many, the music might suggest peace, calm, and more meditative sounds, but if you let your imagination run riot, it can conjure the most impressive pyrotechnics in your mind. As always, it is as much about how you receive and process the music as it is about the artist’s creative intent.