Steffen Schleiermacher, who has become one of the most sensitive interpreters of contemporary piano music, especially that of the Cage (and Cageian) variety, presents six works by Christian Wolff written between 1951 and 1959, a period during which he began experimenting with piano preparations, graphic scoring and chance operations.

One surprise is that, although the piano is prepared for several of the pieces, the effects of the preparation are quite subtle, nowhere near the intoxicating buzz and rattle of, say, Cage's "Three Dances" (and not close to the Southeast Asian influences dominating Cage at that time, either). Instead, one hears a slight tingle here, a small dampening there. More than any effect, what comes through is the exquisite sensitivity and care Wolff has always shown in his music. As sparse and "dry" as it may seem at first encounter, there's an underlying sensuousness as well as a probing curiosity and intelligence always at play.

In "For Piano I" (1952), Wolff coordinated sixteen "time lengths" with instructions as to how dense the number of sounds were to be for each section, the latter determined via I Ching-generated operations. Its consistent dynamic range and pacing make for an unexpectedly accessible piece, containing its own rhythm into which one easily falls. "For Prepared Piano" (1951) used a disjunctive compositional approach, writing five "blocks" of five elements, each out of order, distributing the spare array of notes via quasi-serial methodology, then asking the performer to play back the piece in "proper" sequence, thus generating a work structurally different from how it was formed, retaining an element of surprise for the composer himself. Again, it has an internal cohesiveness that exists almost in defiance of the relative paucity of sounds; it flows along comfortably like a summer stream. Using all 88 keys was one requirement of "For Piano II" (1953) but more important was Wolff's shared feeling with Cage "for the presence of silence or spaces where the composition required no sounds of its own, so as to be transparent with respect to its sonic environment, the world around it" (from Wolff's excellent liner notes). It's spikier than the preceding works, more difficult in a sense unless listened to with consciousness of Wolff's intentions, whereupon one may here it as a series of crystalline shards, between which one glimpses "the world around it".

Both "For Piano with Preparations" (1957) and "Suite (I)" (1954) make use of greater levels of complexity in terms of the layering of three or four lines , the former taking special care with the contrasting sonorities achieved via direct manipulation of the piano strings. Still, those layers don't impinge on one another enough to remove the calm quality encountered earlier; instead of a leaf blowing by every few seconds, there are a handful of them — still plenty of air in between. If anything, one hears a somewhat greater concern for the placement of sounds in space, a bit more "poetry". "For Pianist" (1959) was written for David Tudor with the idea of placing him in a position where part of his playing would be determined by the score, part by what patterns he himself heard while playing and would be free to improvise on. Schleiermacher's sensitivity is clearly evinced on this piece (even if he lacks the brash but boundless creativity of Tudor) as he feels his way through the delicate thicket. Here, as on all of the compositions presented, there's a consistency of purpose and a "Wolffishness" imbued throughout. As fragile and effervescent as the music is, there's also a tensile strength that more than ensures structural firmness while at the same time allowing for surprising glimmers of an almost classical beauty.