Keith Jarrett, La Scala Review

Overall Rating

Rarely has a piece of music touched me in the way that La Scala has. The music in the first, lengthy section, enters some extremely dark and disturbing places. It's almost as if some kind of violent, primitive exorcism is taking place - Jarrett seems engaged in a titanic struggle with overwhelming inner forces. The overall effect is of an intense and terrible mysticism - it felt somehow blasphemous to even listen to this. But the best is yet to come, in the midst of part 2. Indescribably beautiful. No bad points to speak of really. The liner notes are fairly off-putting, Jarrrett is not one for modesty. But, to invert a phrase of Winston Churchill's, he doesn't really have much to be modest about. In my opinion the greatest of Jarrett's solo piano performances, and one of the greatest pieces of music ever recorded.