In the liner notes of his new album Manifeste, pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan writes, among other things, that his role as an artist is to facilitate catharsis. This idea goes back to Aristotle and has been explored by countless artists and philosophers across countless media since.
…What Hamasyan offers here is not just release but ecstasy. In its earthiest, growliest moments, it is still transcendent. Not raw, not visceral, it nonetheless hits the listener on pre-verbal levels, primordial if not primal. At the same time, it is as technically proficient and polished as any Hamasyan work (which is to say, extremely so). So Manifeste deserves as much praise for the skill it demonstrates as for the intense emotion it evokes.
Throughout Manifeste are many of the stylistic…