New Vienna is the fourth concert recording to be released from Keith Jarrett’s final European solo tour. It follows Munich 2016, Budapest Concert and Bordeaux Concert.

Why New Vienna? As Jarrett aficionados will know, his discography already includes a legendary Vienna Concert (recorded at the Vienna State Opera) whose music, he once claimed, spoke “the language of the flame itself”, after long years of “courting the fire”.

Keith Jarrett’s 2016 return to the Austrian capital brought the flames of inspiration to another historic location with lively acoustic properties, the Golden Hall of the Musikverein, where, at the start of the previous century, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern had premiered works that challenged and changed the course of modern music.

New Vienna, shaping its new music in the moment, is near-encyclopedic in scope.

1. New Vienna, Part I [10:58]
2. New Vienna, Part II [6:26]
3. New Vienna, Part III [5:40]
4. New Vienna, Part IV [6:01]
5. New Vienna, Part V [10:28]
6. New Vienna, Part VI [8:37]
7. New Vienna, Part VII [8:38]
8. New Vienna, Part VIII [3:06]
9. New Vienna, Part IX [4:39]
10. Somewhere Over The Rainbow [5:20]

On an album being issued as Keith Jarrett turns 80, this masterful recording opens on the spikily disjointed, yet mesmerizingly melodic, ten-minute New Vienna, Part I and then we get the hypnotic Part II, the stalking, yet resoundingly organic Part III, the ornate gossamer of Part IV, with the simply breathtaking Part V along next.

Although he has not played live since 2017, public interest in his solo music remains high, and his fine form here continues onwards with the pulsingly insightful Part VI which is in turn backed by the beguilingly flourishing Part VII, the upbeat, playful and a little flirtatious Part VIII, the set rounding out on the reflective Part IX, coming to a close on a dutifully enriched rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

And, again, although he has not played live since 2017, public interest in his solo music remains high, with this year’s 50th anniversary of The Köln Concert also generating worldwide media attention.

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