2021 · Album
Shadow Plays
Recorded March 2, 2020, Konzerthaus, Vienna · ECM · Released: October 2021
One Pianist Alone in Vienna's Silence
Taborn transforms the piano into a landscape of unexpected textures and spatial awareness.
Craig Taborn arrived at the Konzerthaus in Vienna on March 2, 2020, with a piano and no ensemble. The date matters: Europe was entering lockdown. Concerts were being cancelled. The isolation was real, not metaphorical. Recording alone, in a room built for orchestras, he had only the instrument and the space itself as collaborators. What emerged was less a recital than a conversation with the acoustic itself — Taborn listening to what the piano could become when given room to breathe and reflect.
Shadow Plays unfolds as a series of small discoveries. Taborn doesn't play virtuosic runs or demonstrate technique for its own sake. Instead, he explores the piano's resonance, the decay of notes, the spaces between sounds. Pieces shift between delicate, almost fragile figures and sudden angular passages that feel almost conversational, as if the pianist is questioning what he just played. The Financial Times reviewer gave it five stars, and there's a reason: this is patient, attentive listening made audible. Taborn respects silence as much as sound.
For listeners unfamiliar with Taborn's work, this is an unusual entry point — closer to introspection than to the more rhythm-driven contexts he's known for. But that's the album's strength. Recorded in isolation, released in October 2021 on ECM, Shadow Plays captures something specific about that moment: a musician alone with an instrument, finding clarity in constraint.
Who's playing
Craig Tabornpiano
