The first time I heard Vassilis Tsabropoulos, I was driving in a borrowed car and in the process of  moving the last of my possessions out of the condo my now ex-wife and I had shared. I was in a dark place; I was in the midst of getting divorced, and I was broke. Yet, the sounds of Chants, Hymns and Dances, which the great Greek composer and pianist had produced with the more-than-able help of Anja Lechner (Rosamunde Quartet cellist), pulled me out of a deep melancholy and into a place of hope and renewal.

Chants, Hymns and Dances focused primarily on re-introducing a number of old Byzantine folk songs with a modern classical twist. The piano of Tsabropoulos and cello of Lechner alighted in a slow frolic and intertwined as only age-old lovers can. With The Promise, a title I have no reference for,but imagine is biblical, Tsabropoulos sits alone at the keys for fifty-five minutes of arpeggios and methodical ticklings.

Don’t get me wrong. The playing is wondrous and skillful, with a studious attention to meter, volume, and emphasis. Nary a note is wasted, nor are they misplaced or wrong; in fact, there may be too much perfection afoot on The Promise. However, one beef I have with this album is that, from track to track, there seems to be little, if any, differentiation in style and form. One hand is often playing a scurrying flutter of backing notes and the other traverses through repetitive arcs on up in the higher registers.

Every track is cinematic. “The Insider” is deliberately contemplative, but seems to lack that certain ‘umph!’ required to push it over the edge into the realm of greatness that I heard years ago on Chants, Hymns and Dances. Throughout the album, the tempo is rarely broken. Witness “Tale of a Man” and its plodding scramble upward through low chords and flitting touches above with the right hand. And as I kept listening, I discovered that I felt something was missing: Anja Lechner. Her heavy, breathing cello was a mere apparition in the background tape hiss of a solo piano album.

This is not to say that I feel Tsabropoulos is unfit to cut a record of solo piano tracks. In fact, quite the contrary. This is a perfect album for driving through a lushly forested countryside. Nonetheless, I feel as though he is almost playing his laments through his isolation from Lechner on this record, as I continually hear phrases and moments where her stringed accompaniment would have blown some of these tracks out of the water.

The Promise is a good listen, with moments of repose abound, but sadly falls short of the potency that Chants, Hymns and Dances had and still has as I listen to it for reference. Certainly plug this album in while taking a day trip to the rain forest or the beach, but don’t hope for it to inspire your dreams.

-Gabriel Bogart