Album Review: Palimpsest 571/ Hao

Album Review: Palimspsest 571/ Rob Hao/ Divine Art

Palimpsest 571 is the title of Australian pianist Rob Hao’s debut album. Released on the Divine Art label, It is a catching title which conveys the concept behind the album which aims to bridge old styles with new.

‘Palimpsest’ is a word of Greek origin, a portmanteau of palin, meaning ‘again’ and psēstos, meaning ‘rubbed smooth.’ The overall reference is to “a very old text or document in which writing has been removed and covered or replaced by new writing” and “something such as a work of art that has many levels of meaning, types of style and other characteristics that build on each other.”

Recorded in Harrow, England in 2025, the album is aptly named. It has as its opening track, the incomplete fragment of sonata by Schubert which Hao performs, followed by his own interpretation and completion of this piece. On the CD, Hao also embraces the repertoire of the Romantic piano with works by Chopin, Liszt and more from Schubert, alongside contemporary works by British composers Alison Kay and Michael Finnissy.

Rewind to the year 1817. The 20-year-old Franz Schubert had been busy, composing around 60 Lieder in the years 1815-16. They include some of the most popular and enduring of his output, including Erlkönig, An die Musik, Die Forelle and Ganymed.

One imagines the young man, exhausted by this creative effort, toying with ideas and fragments of phrases, unable to commit to completing any one task, wondering where his creativity will take him next. It was against this background that he began to write at least five sonatas in 1817, one of which, the Sonata in A minor (d537) was the first to be completed.

Then there are two fragmentary sonatas in three movements, the Sonata in A♭ (d557) and the Sonata in E minor (d566). The others, an Andante in A, d604, the Scherzo in D and the Allegro in F♯ minor that comprise d570 may belong with a fragmentary Allegro moderato in F♯ minor (d571) to form a four-movement work.

It is this last fragment which Hao has made the centrepiece of his new release, taking its number from the catalogue of Schubert’s works compiled by Otto Erich Deutsch.

What exists of the original piece is a plaintive melody over a rolling arpeggiated bass which Hao plays with Schubertian lyricism, the songline always present even in Schubert’s instrumental music. It is very much the work of a young man.

Hao takes this as the nucleus from which to bring these Schubertian elements into the present. The rolling bass that Hao has written underlies an insistent meandering right hand part. The extremes of the piano are explored with tinkling cluster chords and rippling notes in the upper registers over blurred dissonances and a growling lower notes. It leaves almost Impressionistic feel.

Two Nocturnes from Chopin’s Op. 62, the No. 1 in B Major and the No. 2 in E Major are relaxed and dreamy with nicely articulated lines.

Selections by the two British composers, Alison Kay and Michael Finnissy, explore amongst other things, the contrast of sound and silence. Hao has chosen two short pieces, Numbers X and XI from Kay’s Piano Etudes, respectively titled Orison II and Lullaby for Isabelle. Use of the pedal, a bell-like tone in the upper notes, expansive scalar passages and meandering free rhythms create an innovative sound world. The harmonies and their resolutions are engaging. The Lullaby is played with a childlike naivety in a style reminiscent of Debussy or Satie.

The themes of Schubert’s popular, Impromptu in A-flat major, op 142 no 2 are stated with conviction and grace. The melody emerges strongly through the whirling triplets of the Trio.

There is a more direct reference to Schubert’s Lieder in Hao’s selection of Liszt’s transcription of Der Müller und der Bach, a fitting example of Liszt’s skill depicting the burbling brook. Hao makes the piano sing the melody like a voice, taking gentle breaths between lyrical phrasing.

Three fiendishly challenging pieces from Michael Finnissy’s English Country-Tunes, composed in 1977 when he was just 31, place us firmly in the 20th century. Finnissy’s scores are a wonder to behold, hard to read and seemingly impossible to play. Hao has chosen three of the eight songs to perform, No. II Midsummer Morn, No. VII My bonny boy and No. 8 Come beat the drums and sound the fifes.

Midsummer Morn brings to life the heat and haze of midsummer, palpable in the chromatics, the free-flowing, multi-metric rhythms, the instruction to be ‘violent’ or ‘tranquil’ and play with ‘hands fractionally out of sync.’

My bonny boy is another adventure in sustained sound and silence, with the melody divided between right and left hands, Finnissy requesting “(a) smooth, unaccented and even flow.”

Come beat the drums and sound the fifes is a percussive, motoric piece which embraces the extremes of the keyboard. Marked Presto, with multiple time signatures it is free-flowing, Hao playing a jangling right hand, an insistent bass, trilling in both hands, innumerable accidentals and cluster chords, meticulously controlling the dynamics from the barely audible opening to the ferociously loud conclusion.

Palimpsest 571 is a thoughtful and engaging mix of music for the Romantic and the Contemporary piano. It draws on historical elements of the instrument as well as showcasing its development in more recent times. Beautifully played.

Shamistha de Soysa for SoundsLikeSydney©

Read more about Rob Hao and his music here.