On Modes is Anthony Romaniuk’s third solo album for Alpha Classics, and his most personal yet. A meditation on the ancient modal scales that underpin a surprising range of musical history, from medieval plainchant to Radiohead.

Romaniuk pairs original compositions and improvisations with imaginative arrangements of works by Arvo Pärt, Ligeti, Björk, John Adams, and others, drawing unlikely connections across centuries and genres through the common thread of modal color. The album was recorded across two extraordinary instruments: a Klavins M450 vertical grand piano in Berlin — one of the tallest pianos ever built — and a Fazioli F228 grand in Antwerp, each chosen for its distinctive voice and relationship to specific pieces in the program.

The centerpiece is John Adams’s Phrygian Gates (24 minutes), one of the masterpieces of solo piano minimalism, which Romaniuk describes as evoking “epic landscapes of the American West.” Surrounding it are miniatures of great intimacy — Pärt’s Für Alina, a Scottish traditional Black is the Colour, Radiohead’s Motion Picture Soundtrack, and Romaniuk’s own Locrian Waltz — a rare, moody work in the least-used of all modes. The album closes with a 14th-century Catalan hymn, Regina, bringing everything full circle in quiet benediction.

Anthony Romaniuk, Piano