The Ballet Dancer – Little Meister’s (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

It is safe to say that Marius Le Fou, the man behind Little Meister’s, improvises music better than most people can actively plan it. Although his music is made out of inspirations that he draws to him as he plays, it is a testament to his abilities that they are always cohesive, bound to a theme, intricate and infectious. This is the musical equivalent of an artist filling a blank canvas without any prior thought or a storyteller creating a narrative when they are only one step ahead of the listener. But the results are always as fantastic as they are unexpected.

And such is the final destination here, and The Ballet Dancer is less the image of an artist being painted in sound and more the essence of one being captured in such a medium. Each gentle run of notes is a graceful step, each change of pace a moment of reflection or a burst of energy, the notes cascading across the keyboard as the dancer circles, spirals and spins across the stage with just the same delicacy and beauty.

The simple, unadorned nature of the music keeps things magical, underplayed, and ornate rather than complex whenever it chooses to be, understated rather than merely plain when it wishes to charm. It is the same simplicity that all incredible creative art has, including the dancer he brings to life here. Simple, not because the artist is unequipped to do anything more complex, the opposite being true. This simplicity belies years of training, hours of dedication and a lifetime of effort and imagination. The music here is straightforward and unadorned because Marius knows that it is in simplicity that you find natural beauty, pure grace, and real delicacy. And that is what he has built here.