De-formation: Piano Variations

Throughout the 2010s, Diamanda Galas worked on a musical interpretation of Das Fieberspital (The Fever Hospital), a German expressionist poem written by Georg Heym in 1912, setting the foreboding text (about the treatment of patients diagnosed with yellow fever) to a complex arrangement for live and multi-tracked vocals, piano, and electronics. The work was performed in concert during various stages of its development, and before Galas readied a recording of it, she issued De-formation: Piano Variations, a 21-minute solo piano composition inspired by the poem, in 2020. Even without Galas inimitable, multi-octave shrieks and wails, its hard to imagine the piece coming from anyone else, as it sounds like a more abstract, stripped-down iteration of her piano-and-vocals performances, as captured on releases like La Serpenta Canta or All the Way. Beginning with a sequence of stark, doom-filled thuds from the extreme left end of the keyboard, the piece continues in a stop-start manner, varying between clambering note clusters and ominous processions. While its hard to tell if theres an intentional narrative arc to the piece, things start to get more vivid during its middle third, even ascending to a spiritual-esque tone at one point. Its not accurate to say that it sounds at peace during its final minutes, but its certainly front-loaded with its heaviest emotions. De-formation seems a little scattered, but its a fine prelude to the eventual release of the fully realized Das Fieberspital. ~ Paul Simpson