For over fifty years, this Ukrainian pianist has been spreading the world with a deluge of notes played at top speed, giving birth to a style of which he is the sole master: continuous music. Here are a few keys to the abundant work of this musician who leaves no one unscathed.

The war in Ukraine has sadly lifted the veil on a whole host of forgotten or underestimated musicians. The worldwide feeling of compassion has given rise to a fair reappraisal of Ukraine's musical heritage. Very active on Twitter and Youtube, Lubomyr Melnyk has not been outdone in his courageous stance, and has been for several years. Unfortunately, Melnyk's music has yet to benefit from serious critical scrutiny. His place in the contemporary musical landscape is a little out of place, a sentimental minimalist for some, or a simple virtuoso for others. The only observation: he fills the Gaîté Lyrique in Paris or the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels more easily than the Lyon Auditorium or the Berlin Philharmonic.

Lubomyr Melnyk's videos generate thousands, if not millions of views, but one in particular brought him to the attention of the general public. It shows him playing enhanced arpeggios with uncommon speed in front of the BBC cameras, peppered with accidental notes that form a long, soaring, incessant melody. And in this video, two records are broken: that of the world's fastest pianist (with over 19 notes per second in each hand) and that of the greatest number of notes in one hour: Melnyk manages to maintain a speed of 13 notes per second simultaneously in both hands, producing a remarkable total of 93,650 notes! So much for lovers of records and continuous sounds.

Continuous.
The word is out. Lubomyr Melnyk holds this term dearer than anything else. Here's what he had to say when I interviewed him for this review: "Continuous music was born at the Paris Opera in 1973. I was hungry and devoted to the piano... a good combination!... and I played the piano for Carolyn Carlson 's magical modern dance workshops in the attic of the Paris Opéra. At the time, there was a need to create a "sound room" with walls and floors for the dancers to work on - a spiritual sound room - and this room had to be continuous so that the 20 dancers could work in it one by one. With my 10 fingers, I wanted to achieve the same effects as the American composers who used 15 musicians. And so continuous music was born. It's a milestone in piano history! It's definitely a radically new piano technique. It has to be learned, studied, and requires years of devotion before you can really play! It took me 40 years to become a Master, where there is a transcendence of the physical body into deeper dimensions. Continuous Music actually modifies the flesh of the body, just as Tai Chi and Kung Fu modify the Master's body. But in the case of Continuous Music, the change occurs more within the music... and the hands at the piano. The world's greatest classical pianists will never be able to play the advanced pieces I play, because they only have classical technique, with its emphasis on fingerwork. In continuous music, the pianist goes far beyond the fingers to achieve fast, light movements and multidimensional thinking! In fact, ALL other piano techniques - classical, rock, etc. - are finger-based. Continuous music doesn't use the fingers at all... it's totally energy-based and goes through the wrist." So much for the history, defense and illustration of continuous music.

His first record, KMH (a title deliberately as cryptic as a license plate), is a private concert given in Toronto in 1978. This recording, which has become a sought-after rarity, is a unique, truly breathtaking moment. For almost fifty minutes, Melnyk overwhelms us with notes of dazzling clarity, as if he wanted to knock us out. Once you've entered this world, which demands a certain amount of attention, you can let yourself be invaded by this shower of sound. Surely one of his best records, in any case the most emblematic of continuous music.

In addition to a certain propensity for (rightly) extolling the merits of this new musical and pianistic technique, Lubomyr Melnyk is right to insist on the physical side of his music: seeing this musician at the piano is one of those musical moments you just don't forget. Such involvement, such technical flexibility and such exaggerated lyricism are bound to convince. A video from 1982 in Toronto shows him at the peak of his powers (34 years old), tirelessly shuffling arpeggios up and down at top speed, surreptitiously changing a note or two and chromatically modulating little by little. You can hear these resonances - for which he alone has the secret - collide and respond to each other. Melnyk's art lies in this little home video.

Born of Ukrainian parents in Munich in 1948, his parents moved to Canada in the early 1950s to escape communism. " I started playing when I was 3. My mother and her sister were trained singers, and we had a piano at home - even though we were very poor immigrants at the time - because music was very important to my mother. And when she saw that I was composing music on the piano, she made me take lessons - which I hated - but soon I began to love it more and more ... until this instrument became my life and my breath. I was classically trained, of course! Where else can you get such technical training and knowledge? I took the normal conservatory course and ended up playing Beethoven's difficult piano sonatas. I've always loved Beethoven's music above all else, but I had a special love for his Third Piano Concerto, which I've listened to maybe 300 times..." It was on a trip to Paris that he met choreographer Carolyn Carlson and perfected his famous continuous technique. The result was a theoretical work entitled Open Time: The Art of Continuous Music. So it was through dance - so closely linked to music since the dawn of time - that Melnyk found himself. He never stopped collaborating with different choreographers.

Now in 2022, he lives in Sweden and has made a name for himself with the strength of his ten fingers, his self-production (the label Bandura Records label) and self-sacrifice as a kind of minimalist outsider - although he strongly rejects the term. We continue our conversation : "I do NOT consider my music minimalist at all - not at all! In fact, my music is maximalist! It has the maximum possible of everything a pianist can do! Ten fingers working non-stop, and patterns, rhythms and melodies intertwining into a solid flow of sound." However, there are close links with certain aspects of this minimalist aesthetic: a frank return to tonality, a stable pulse, a strong tendency towards melodic, harmonic and rhythmic repetition, and a slowly evolving structure. Some of his works are reminiscent of the acoustic effects of Steve Reich and the repetitive superimpositions of Terry Riley. But this is a far cry from Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt or Meredith Monk. Melnyk's musical approach draws more on his heritage of 19th-century piano composers such as Beethoven (his absolute master), Liszt and Chopin. Like Chopin, he plays strictly his own music, and teaches it through courses and methods. For him, teaching is an essential mission: "Why does this music exist if not to give it to other people to appreciate and love? This music wasn't given to me so that I could be rich... it was given to me so that the world could be enriched by it! And that means I have to teach it to others." Melnyk's scores can be obtained either by writing to him directly or through one of his labels, Erased Tapes, on which he has released four albums in recent years and a collection of his works. Melnyk's piano pieces are meticulously written and annotated, but the writing is very particular: they require acclimatization and some advice from the Master (which he offers on video), but unfortunately the result is never quite up to the standard of the model (according to his own admission), and he would so much like to see his style adopted by other pianists: "That's my biggest problem! That nobody can play this music. It's impossible for the best classical pianists to do well... they can of course play anything... but not well, and they'll NEVER be able to achieve the right pressure on the keys or the right speed or anything else properly, because they're doing tai chi with karate technique and it doesn't work! So who will? Who's going to play this music when I'm gone?" For any enthusiast, studying Circular Pieces - 22 Etudes could be the start.

Lubomyr Melnyk occasionally collaborates with other musicians (pianists, violists, trombonists or cellists) and composes for them, but it's really as a soloist that you can appreciate all his power and originality. Over the years, through concerts and recordings, Lubomyr Melnyk has won over a younger audience more accustomed to listening to electro or the epigones of the great figures of minimalism. He has yet to win over the classical and contemporary public, who sometimes take too long to accept the new: Glass, Reich and Pärt are finally being taken seriously and are in their eighties.

In recent months, concerts have resumed for Lubomyr Melnyk, but his heart is torn by the Ukrainian conflict, as evidenced by several videos and a number of works born of this terror. Like his compatriot Valentin Silvestrov, his language of recent years has become less radical, much more lyrical and exacerbated. In the face of horror, Lubomyr Melnyk has slowed down his fingers and notes to make way for silence, verbal anger and emotion.

François Mardirossian

Lubomyr Melnyk will be performing at the Superspectives festival in Lyon on June 17.

Four works to listen to in priority:
The Voice Of Trees (1985)
This work for two pianos and three tubas uses the re-recording technique. Lubomyr records himself once and plays back what he has just played, as does the tuba player. Composed for the Maison de la Danse de Lyon for choreographer Kilina Cremona.
Concert-Requiem (1984)
Composed for piano and violin, this long requiem is a tribute to the 7 million victims of the Holodomor, the great famine suffered by the Ukraine between 1931 and 1933.
Illirion (2016)
"Beyond Romance" - 2016 (a piano piece typical of his style today, with an extended, tender and enveloping lyricism)
The Song Of Galadriel (1984)
A vast Melnyk-style fresco inspired by the mythology of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. This work is full of extremely successful moments, with an unparalleled melodic élan)
And to go further, Pockets of Light (2013)