Adam Berenson's music moves in a field of tension between perception, surprise, and refusal to assign meaning. It does not narrate, it does not explain—it simply happens. In this openness, it is reminiscent of the literary world of Franz Kafka, whose texts do not provide fixed interpretations but rather throw the reader—like Berenson's music throws the listener—back on themselves.
Berenson understands music not as an expression of preconceived content, but as an independent form of thought. For him, sound becomes an experience of intensity, of closeness and strangeness at the same time. As with Kafka, meaning and context do not arise from recognition, but only in retrospect – through attention, memory, and repeated listening. Each work demands to be perceived as a whole before its inner logic becomes apparent.
Central to this album are Berenson's second and fourth string quartets, genetically related despite the time gap between them. mammisi – named after the ancient Egyptian “birth house” – is a compact, highly concentrated piece full of expectation and latent tension. String Quartet No. 4 further develops this sound world: the first movement moves whisperingly in the shadows, fragmentary and interrupted; the second movement opens up a continuous, intoxicating space of noises and sonic artifacts in which time and direction seem to be suspended.
The program is complemented by the piano concerto Everything that no one ever saw—a completely improvised work for piano and electronics. A dense stream of everyday electronic sounds forms the “orchestra,” which is countered by the piano with lyrical independence, almost as if it were moving unwaveringly in a romantic concert of the 19th century. This friction gives rise to a fragile unity: not an escape from the world, but a musical response to its noise.
Berenson's music does not reveal any ready-made meanings – it trains the ability to engage with the new. It is at once sensual and intellectual, physical and abstract: listening as an experience of the present.