Month: November 2010

Schubert: Trio in Es-Dur/Notturno (ECM New Series 1595)

| Tyran Grillo

Franz Schubert
Trio in Es-Dur/Notturno

Jörg Ewald Dähler fortepiano
Hansheinz Schneeberger violin
Thomas Demenga cello
Recorded July 1995

ECM has nobly benefited the classical music industry by continuing to draw bold lines back to the works of Franz Schubert with consistently thoughtful performances and pairings. Although he never wrote for piano trio until his final year of life, Schubert seems to have put his all into the two masterworks that are the op. 99 and op. 100. For this major release, the latter has been paired with the often-neglected “Notturno,” published two decades after his death.

Harriett Smith calls the Trio in Es-Dur für Klavier, Violine und Violoncello op. 100, D 929 a “bridge between the trios of Beethoven and Brahms,” and was the longest ever composed (it equals, if not surpasses, the average symphony in scope) until Morton Feldman’s Trio of 1980. Penned in 1827, four years into the advancement of his syphilis, Schubert’s second piano trio came about when a close friend, Josef von Spaun, requested the piece for his wedding. Schubert would die in a matter of months after its premier, which reached his ears once before they heard no more.

The musicians superbly evoke the careful tension Schubert has worked into every phrase of the first movement. In its cosmos, one hears the voices of the stars, throttling the engine of space-time in dreamy suspension. A tinge of classicism adorns the Swedish folk song-enriched interior of the second movement, its delicate modality reflected in the pizzicato from both strings. An Austrian country-dance provides the basis for the Scherzo that follows, leading us into a massive Allegro moderato, which inventively brings back the theme of the second movement. Despite the daunting length of this and the first movement, our sense of progression never wavers. Schubert’s magical touches make exuberant experiences out of these longer narratives.

If, in the full trio, we get four worlds as one universe, in the Trio in Es-Dur für Klavier, Violine, Violoncello op. posth. 148, D 897 we get a glimpse into a newborn nebula. This single movement, dubbed “Notturno” (Nocturne) by publisher and composer Anton Diabelli, is believed to have been a rejected Adagio for the first piano trio in B flat major. As fragile as it is taut, it continues to thrive, a gorgeous offspring wrought in filigree and grace.

Jörg Ewald Dähler’s historically informed fortepiano, combined with the profoundly contemporary approaches of resident label cellist Thomas Demenga and the legendary Hansheinz Schneeberger on violin, infuses every moment of these performances with equal parts innovation and ritual. One need only listen behind closed eyes to see the images they recreate.

<< Peter Erskine Trio: As It Is (ECM 1594)
>> Misha Alperin: North Story (ECM 1596)

Pat Metheny: Watercolors (ECM 1097)

| Tyran Grillo

1097 X

Pat Metheny
Watercolors

Pat Metheny guitars
Lyle Mays piano
Eberhard Weber bass
Dan Gottlieb drums
Recorded February 1977 at Talent Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

From the opening strains of Pat Metheny’s second album, we immediately know that we have a calming yet powerful journey ahead of us. The present company—among which keyboardist Lyle Mays, a Pet Metheny Group fixture, makes his first appearance—renders his characteristic combination of form and style into an instinctive wash of comfort. Mays’s pianism proves the perfect complement to the guitarist’s untainted sound. Just listen to the way he buoys the music in the opening title track, and his fluent solo in “River Quay,” and you will hardly be able to imagine the music without him. We get a lingering look at Metheny’s own abilities in “Icefire,” in which he solos on a cleverly tuned 12-string that lobs between solid chords and higher callings. Midway through, the music melts into its second titular half, flowering in a cluster of Ralph Towner-esque harmonics. “Oasis” introduces the harp guitar, a sympathetically strung instrument that shines in Metheny’s hands like the charango in Gustavo Santaolalla’s. A mournful electric sings at its center, ever shielded by an unrequited embrace of acoustics. Varied rhythms and bold chord changes animate its otherwise stagnant beauty. After these quiet submersions, we come up into air, and into light, with the beautiful “Lakes,” which positively glows with quiet ecstasies. Again, Mays broadens the edges to new waterlines, cresting like a wave that never crashes upon its thematic shores. A two-part suite proves a complex call and response with the self before the 10-minute “Sea Song” reprises the harp guitar for its swan song. The music here is beyond aquatic, and could easily have seeded a Ketil Bjørnstad project. Eberhard Weber’s smooth bass introduces the morning’s regular activities with the first rays of sunrise in countless awakening eyes, before rolling out once again, drawn back into the depths like the tide that gives them life.

Metheny’s precision dives and soars, a most selfless bird, his fingers running together like the colors of the album’s title. His supporting crew is in tune at every moment (and one mustn’t fail to praise Dan Gottlieb’s drumming in this regard), protecting every melody with passionate detail. This is perfect music for travel, for the music travels itself. It’s a plane ride above a shimmering landscape, a hang-glide over open valleys, a dive into crystal waters—and yet, our feet never leave the ground. One might call it otherworldly, were it not so firmly rooted in the earth in all its glory. Pure magic from start to finish.

<< Collin Walcott: Grazing Dreams (ECM 1096)
>> Julian Priester and Marine Intrusion: Polarization (ECM 1098)

Chick Corea: Solo Piano (ECM 2140-42)

| Tyran Grillo

Corea Solo Piano

Chick Corea
Solo Piano

Chick Corea piano
Ida Kavafian violin
(Children’s Songs, Track 20)
Fred Sherry cello
(Children’s Songs, Track 20)
Release date: March 26, 2010

Much of the jazz that has come to characterize the “ECM sound” is known for its pellucid solemnity. Conversations between sound and space abound, in which vestiges of their own histories mark the passage of time. To younger listeners like myself, it is sometimes easy to forget that the label remains rooted in the youthful immediacy one finds in these formative efforts from Chick Corea. While his refreshing approach to pianism inhabits the same continent as other formidable players, Corea is very much his own culture. Much of the later material that would come to define the “Corea sound,” however, is in clear evidence throughout these discs, and especially in the improvised efforts.

1014 X

Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 (ECM 1014)

Recorded April 21 & 22, 1971, Bendiksen Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: 1971

From note one, these improvisations abound with the freedom of an artist who is ever at his peak. Their many tender touches and nostalgic leanings are shielded by a powerful optimism. Such exuberance makes them all the more embraceable in their poignancy. Tunes such as “Noon Song” twirl like a skirt in the breeze. Others (“Sometime Ago” and “Song For Sally”) are flirtatious and skip from one thought to another: a love in overdrive. The pièce de résistance, however, is the eight-part suite “Where Are You Now?” In this series of “pictures,” Corea renders for us a film whose soundtrack precedes its images. There are no mysterious titles to ponder; each tells us exactly what we are going to hear. The playing is at once pliant and mechanical, carrying across its feelings with such genuine appreciation for the listener that one cannot help but smile.

<< Dave Holland/Derek Bailey: Improvisations for Cello and Guitar (ECM 1013)
>> Jan Garbarek Quintet: Sart (ECM 1015)

1020

Piano Improvisations Vol. 2 (ECM 1020)
Recorded April 21 & 22, 1971, Bendiksen Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: March 1, 1972

This companion volume of Corea’s improvisations doesn’t merely continue where the first left off, but fleshes out finer details unexplored in its neglected depths. This volume is more nocturnal than the last, a siesta in songs without words. “After Noon Song” starts us off alluringly before the crisper interjections of Thelonius Monk’s “Trinkle Tinkle” and Wayne Shorter’s “Masqualero.” The second act is where the album begins to fray at the edges, and becomes all the more mystical for it. At first, experiments like “Departure From Planet Earth” seem to stray into unnecessarily weighty territory. Yet with each listen, they tell us more about their travels. And while Corea’s often-discussed religious predilections (I dare not invoke the “S” word here) may give us even greater insight into the music’s enigmatic borders, in this instance such forays into biographical details provide little advantage. Either way, Corea reacclimates into “A New Place.” This is polyglot music, of which each melody its own tongue. Though some are more readily interpretable than others, we always know what is trying to be said.

<< Circle: Paris Concert (ECM 1018/19)
>> Keith Jarrett/Jack DeJohnette: Ruta And Daitya (ECM 1021)

1267

Children’s Songs (ECM 1267)
Recorded July 1983 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: April 1, 1984

By a similar twist of fate that kept me from The Köln Concert for so many years, I only discovered this album recently, and I must say that it deserves a throne alongside Keith Jarrett’s magnum opus for its unfathomable hidden power. Beneath the album’s contemplative veneer beats a furnace of a heart stoked by creative flames, the heights of which are rarely surpassed in today’s genre-hungry climate. Begun in 1971, and recorded here twelve years later, Children’s Songs gives us Chick Corea at his compositional best. At first, the title is an enigma: Are these songs to be played by children or for children? But as we soon discover, the child has already outgrown itself. Like clouds, these pieces take on whatever shapes we project onto them. On the one hand, their steady obbligatos and carefully chosen points of contact resemble the latent energies of Philip Glass (No. 1) and Steve Reich (No. 9). On the other, they pantomime a range of influences, from ragtime to Satie (No. 19 is like something lifted straight out of Gymnopédies) to Bartók (the Mikrokosmos parallels being almost too obvious to mention). One can also clearly see how influential this music must have been to others. The filmic beauty of No. 4 cannot have been lost, for example, on Michael Nyman. These are also pieces about contrast. Take, for example, the left hand in No. 6, which lays out a triadic darkness, while the right hand insists on spinning light before our very eyes. Corea’s characteristic ornaments, as in the descending trill at end of No. 3, grow richer every time, and the sweeping elegies of No. 10, 12, and 13 allow the Corea we know and love to shine through. Violin and cello add delightful pliancy to the “Addendum,” a classically minded closer that puts a stylish bow on an already crisply wrapped package.

Corea and his legacy blossom at every moment throughout these three seminal albums, with which he singlehandedly revitalized the solo piano program as an art form to be taken seriously in the post-Art Tatum era. He is the reliable narrator, the quiet provocateur, and the entertainer. He is also none of these. He bids us to listen without pretense, knowing that a carefully defined surface is nothing without the depth to support it. At the same time, he wastes no time in trying to intellectualize what lies beneath, secure in the knowledge that his music will carry on the conversation. This is an essential collection that belongs on any ECM fan’s shelf, not to mention a prime candidate for reissue of the century.

<< Rainer Brüninghaus: Continuum (ECM 1266)
>> Ulrich P. Lask: Sucht+Ordnung (ECM 1268)

 

Helmut Lachenmann: Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern (ECM New Series 1858/59)

| Tyran Grillo

The Little Match Girl

Helmut Lachenmann
Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern

Eiko Morikawa Sopran
Nicole Tibbels Sopran
Helmut Lachenmann Sprecher (“Zwei Gefühle”)
Mayumi Miyata shō
Yukiko Sugawara Klavier
Tomoko Hemmi Klavier
Experimentalstudio der Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung des SWR Elektronische Realisation
André Richard Klangregie
SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart
SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg
Matthias Hermann Musikalische Einstudierung
Sylvain Cambreling Leitung
Recorded July 2003 in Freiburg, Germany

Angst is the necessary form of the curse laid in the universal coldness upon those who suffer of it.
–Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics

Helmut Lachenmann’s Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern (The Little Match Girl) is a beguiling, albeit loosely contextualized, redaction of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytale of the same name. The girl in question pedals matches on New Year’s Eve before seeking shelter from the cold. She lights one match after another to keep from freezing, fearing her father’s wrath for not having sold any. With every conflagration, she is visited by visions of warmth, sustenance, and love—the last things she ever sees before the climate takes her life. Lachenmann augments this frigid morality tale with other textual sources: Leonardo da Vinci’s The Desire for Knowledge, in which the artist stands before a volcanic chasm, and the writings of Gudrun Ensslin, Red Army Faction reactionary, and acquaintance of Lachenmann’s, who marked her life with fiery eruptions of her own. Each of these figures, marginally marked by forces beyond their control, cowers in its respective hovel, succumbing to the darkest edges of already shadowed words.

What we have in the present recording is the opera’s “Tokyo version,” which, according to the composer, is definitive. Lachenmann’s self-styled “music with images” is beyond meticulous. Its first part is overwhelming and impenetrable, lost in gusts of scrapings, percussive half-statements, and voices doomed to inhabit the borders of incoherence. A dust storm of pops, whistles, skips, whispers, yawns, sighs, shouts, grunts, flutters, clucks and clicks, open-mouthed slaps, and general aphasia shares a lung with an extra-sensory instrumental constituent. Unrealized dreams are its blood, unformed words and broken promises its skin. Speech curls into itself, like a radio dial constantly tuned from one station to the next, an effect only heightened by the presence of electronics. Every sound disguises indecisiveness as ardent exploration, even while achieving that very thing, inhabiting the mouths and heads of its characters, such that human voices and instrumental utterances become so closely allied that often one is hard-pressed to distinguish between the two (and, in fact, feels no need to do so). The drama comes to a head in “Die Jagd” (The Hunt), leading at last to fully articulated speech in “Auf Allen Fenstern” (On Every Window), before a monumental closure. The second part wavers like a flame caressed by frosty winds, hiccups, and choked sentiments. “In Einem Winkel” (At An Angle) provides some startlingly beautiful moments, of a piece with the alchemical precision of Stockhausen and Ligeti at their most meditative. “Zwei Gefühle” (Two Sentiments) gives us the longest stretch of speech, culminating in a prickly crescendo. The opera finishes with a long drone laced with sine waves and counted in time by the rapping of death at our door. Its barely articulated fade is an epilogue to end all epilogues.

One might feel compelled to criticize Das Mädchen as a nervous wreck unsuitable for any self-respecting listener, but the consistency with which it cracks itself open, like a suicidal egg, is so visceral that any negative reactions fall with it to their doom. It transcends the utterance at every turn, dissecting “taboo” into its meaningless phonemes. Like a workout after years of inactivity, it exercises muscles we never even knew we had. Having never seen the opera live, and with only the booklet’s cryptic black-and-whites to go on, I cannot speak with any surety for its potential production value. Suffice it to say that I will be in the front row should the opportunity ever present itself.

Tomasz Stanko: Balladyna (ECM 1071)

| Tyran Grillo

Balladyna

Tomasz Stanko
Balladyna

Tomasz Stanko trumpet
Tomasz Szukalski tenor and soprano saxophones
Dave Holland bass
Edward Vesala drums
Recorded December 1975, Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

I can only imagine the reactions Tomasz Stanko garnered with Balladyna, his first recording for ECM. The no-holds-barred “First Song” jumps into action with that hard swing that can only come from Dave Holland. Add to this brew the wide-ranging percussion of Edward Vesala and the spicy solos of our frontman and Tomsaz Szukalski, and you have a jambalaya to savor and remember. After such a climactic opener, Stanko could play “Happy Birthday” for all I care. Thankfully (though who knows what this quartet might have done with such ubiquity?) we a get the Ornette Coleman-infused “Tale” that faithfully charts a key transition from raw to cooked jazz. One can feel the rapt attention with which each musician listens to the other.

Original Balladyna
Original cover

This live, interactive energy continues in “Num,” sustained by knitted cymbal work as the two Tomaszes go head to ecstatic head. A killer bass solo makes the cut complete. A lumbering Holland/Stanko interlude opens the door on the title number, anteing up in tutti before spreading its hand into a straight improvisatory flush. Stanko screeches above a pointillist rhythm section, Szukalski stepping into the footprints he leaves behind. A doleful, mocking tone returns in the tongue-in-cheekly titled “Last Song,” nodding like a head succumbing to sleep. The fine horn playing makes this one a standout. The actual last song, “Nenaliina,” is an effusive spring of percussion with a brassy tail.

After all these years, the teeth of Balladyna still make for quite a bite. Anyone wanting to hear the label’s heartbeat in its prime need place an ear to no other chest.

<< Keith Jarrett: Arbour Zena (ECM 1070)
>> Gary Burton Quintet: Dreams So Real (ECM 1072)

Terje Rypdal: After The Rain (ECM 1083)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1083

Terje Rypdal
After The Rain

Terje Rypdal electric and acoustic guitars, string ensemble, piano, electric piano, soprano saxophone, flute, tubular bells, bells
Inger Lise Rypdal voice
Recorded August, 1976 at Talent Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Konghaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

With an incendiary initiation on Jan Garbarek’s Afric Pepperbird, and after successfully leading far-reaching experiments like his first self-titled project and the plush Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away, Terje Rypdal opened a new door for ECM when he stepped into the studio to record perhaps his most intimate statement to date. In spite of their brevity, the ten tracks on After The Rain flow in a single 38-minute ode to the almost painful depths of life’s greatest joys. Rypdal overdubs every instrument himself, with his then-wife, vocalist Inger Lise, providing the occasional organic touch. Shielded by a holy trinity of intimacy, sincerity, and fearlessness, Rypdal plunges with open eyes into the darkest eddies of his emotional waters. An electric keyboard provides much of the album’s supportive breadth, as in the heavily flanged gem that is “Air.” Rypdal gives us a rare acoustic taste in “Now And Then,” and in “Wind” an even rarer flute solo. The title track breathes in a cloudless sky, Rypdal’s electric cello-like in its weighted grace. Wind chimes complete the illusion of the cover art’s open plain. A string of vignettes, among them the utterly poignant “Little Bell,” leads us to “Like A Child, Like A Song,” bringing its hands together in humble elegy.

Hanging words such as “atmospheric,” “evocative,” or “lyrical” on this Christmas tree would only topple it in a shower of withered needles. One might say the title refers not to the music itself, which if anything feels drenched, but rather to its lingering effects. I sometimes imagine the synthesizer here as a substitute for an unavailable orchestra, the presence of which would have created an entirely different, Eberhard Weber-like, experience. As it is, its sedation lends a potent archival ascendency and distills the soaring solos within. Rypdal’s keening guitar percolates through the album’s semi-porous cloth like sunlight through the veil over a face of one who has seen the world only through the wavering screen of tears, and never in the clarity of day. It is a style of playing that falls even as it rises. At his profoundest moments, Rypdal inspires a humbling lack of vocabulary with which to describe what one hears. In which case, After the Rain is filled with silence.

<< Arild Andersen: Shimri (ECM 1082)
>> Eberhard Weber: The Following Morning (ECM 1084)

Kenny Wheeler: Gnu High (ECM 1069)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1069

Kenny Wheeler
Gnu High

Kenny Wheeler fluegelhorn
Keith Jarrett piano
Dave Holland bass
Jack DeJohnette drums
Recorded June 1975, Generation Sound Studios, New York
Engineer: Tony May
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Kenny Wheeler’s ECM debut cut against the grain of his previously avant-garde stylistics. Dispensing here with his trusty trumpet for fluegelhorn, Wheeler carved out a niche that still leaves room for no other. The heartening tone of “Heyoke” animates our very bodies with 22 minutes of bliss. After Wheeler’s prophetic intro, Jarrett is given free reign at the keyboard, uttering ecstatic cries as he threads through Holland’s solo while also buoying Wheeler’s instinctive pickups. “Smatter” injects this trio of compositions with a hefty dose of kinetic energy that is sustained by Wheeler’s fluid brass and the tireless volleys of Jarrett. Even as the latter takes his lone passage, one feels the energy lingering like a potential leap into flight. “Gnu Suite” begins smoothly before locking into a downtempo trajectory. An unrepeatable magic occurs as Holland’s magnetic solo opens into the wider ethereal territory of his bandmates’ consecutive reappearances. And as the voices realign themselves, we feel the release of arrival, of knowing that we’ve come home.

One could hardly smelt a more fortuitous combination of musical alloys, which in spite of (or perhaps because of) their intense respective powers, manage to cohere into a consistently visionary sound. Jarrett only seems to get better in the presence of others (this was to be his last album as sideman), feeding as he does off their energy and vice versa. Wheeler is another musician who easily stands his own ground, yet imbibes only the most saturated elixirs of mindful interaction. And I need hardly extol the wonders of having Holland and DeJohnette covering one’s back. Gnu High stands out also for the fact that many of its solos occur alone, so that we are able to place an ear to the heartbeat of every musician in turn. Their internal compasses share a magnetic north, pointing to a direction in sound that continues to drive the label some three-and-a-half decades later.

<< Terje Rypdal: Odyssey (ECM 1067/68)
>> Keith Jarrett: Arbour Zena (ECM 1070)

Richard Beirach: Eon (ECM 1054)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1054

Richard Beirach
Eon

Richard Beirach piano
Frank Tusa bass
Jeff Williams drums
Recorded November 1974 at Generation Sound Studios, New York
Engineer: Tony May
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Eon was the first album under the New York-born Richard Beirach’s name, and arguably still his best. Its balance of rhythm, melody, and reflection epitomizes the piano trio format, and nowhere more so than “Nardis” (Davis/Evans), the 14-minute epic that opens this set of six progressively far-reaching tunes. ECM listeners may recognize its lovely vamp as performed by Ralph Towner on his unparalleled Solo Concert of 1979. Here, it glows under a full and vibrant touch. Beirach keeps his fingers busily engaged, while allowing his rhythm section some glorious airtime, winding down like a rock band extending power chords, only here in a more intimate space in which that prolonging becomes not a dramatic farewell but the acceptance of a new beginning. “Places” (Dave Liebman) is an effervescent piano solo with all the romanticism one might expect from such a consummate musician. It also gives us a preview of his solo album Hubris, which would be soon to come. “Seeing You” (Tusa/Beirach) continues in much the same vein, but reintroduces the smooth glide of brushed drums and bass. A subtle rhythmic acuity and free and easy interplay suspend the listener in a swaying hammock of nostalgia. Block chords burrow through the title track with a hint of dissonance before flowering in calmer pastures. Fair, extended performances make this the culmination of the album’s surrounding gestures. Sentiments build into ecstasy before a final sprinkling from piano and cymbals is flicked into darkness like water from glittering fingertips. “Bones” at last puts more sticks to skin as Beirach recedes for tearful bass solo, hitting the occasional accent to keep us chordally ground. “Mitsuku” closes us out in style with a gratifying promise.

An easy album to get lost in, for at its gates one sees no need for maps.

<< Michael Naura: Vanessa (ECM 1053)
>> Gary Burton/Steve Swallow: Hotel Hello (ECM 1055)

Cikada String Quartet: In due tempi (ECM New Series 1799)

| Tyran Grillo

Cikada String Quartet
In due tempi

The Cikada String Quartet
Henrik Hannisdal violin
Odd Hannisdal violin
Marek Konstantynowicz viola
Morten Hannisdal violoncello
Recorded August 2001 at Sofienberg Church, Oslo

“My music is as I am.”
–Kaija Saariaho

On April 10 of this year, I had the pleasure of meeting Kaija Saariaho after a lecture given at Mount Holyoke College. Her talk covered a range of topics, including her reclaiming of “compositrice” as a self-referential term; the conceptual tendrils that had coalesced into her third opera, Émilie; and the ever-present role of electronics in her music. She also waxed nostalgic about her many influences. Of these, her deep admiration for Witold Lutosławski stands paramount. The Polish composer once told her, “I am the first audience. I need to step back and see if I would accept the music as a listener.” These sentiments have since charged her music with a chameleonic energy, an energy that stems directly from Saariaho’s beloved dreams. Nymphéa (1987), for string quartet and live electronics, is like a breath of spectral wind in the trees. It is a fitting introduction of her work to the ECM catalogue, and one can only hope the conversation will continue. Where Saariaho stands out among contemporary composers is her ability to maintain a dense auditory palette without ever lapsing into distinctly melodic territory. The note becomes movement, a smile, an ankle in the shadows of the trees, a glimpse of a flowing dress upon the water. Together, they become a handful of medicinal tears, cast like seeds onto a lake’s fertile surface. Each gesture of the quartet is magnified in a fiery reverb, as the musicians are bid to whisper verses by Arseny Tarkovsky (father of director Andrei). Shades of Crumb’s Black Angels and André Boucourechliev’s Archipel II comingle in a magical incantation. And, like a whisper, the resulting sounds lay just beyond our reach. At points it flirts with cacophony, a composition in fast forward. A violin cracks its adolescent voice, cradled by echoes of former ghosts, and inaugurates a lilting series of responses, ending at the edge of our conscious field of vision.

After such a mind-altering experience, John Cage’s String Quartet in Four Parts (1949/50) wafts like a fragrance, familiar but forgotten. Its four seasonal movements consist of glassy block chords (what Cage called “gamuts”) in lateral formation, each casting a distinct shadow across the whole. Strings are played with minimal bow pressure, flowing with rapt neutrality until the last movement sheds its spring clothing. This makes for a fitting segue into Bruno Maderna’s more serial Quartetto per archi in due tempi (1955). Though one might not know it from this quartet (it is dedicated to Luciano Berio), Maderna much admired Cage and took it upon himself to pen one of the first analytical studies of his music. Here, slow and careful development leads to an increasingly fractured and nervous tale, rupturing into a more forcefully plucked affair before settling back into its quieter beginnings.

In due tempi is an album of transitory spaces, worth the price of admission for Nymphéa alone, after which the others seem to pale in comparison, yet which still provide more than enough intrigue for the open-eared listener. And while my bias obviously leans toward Saariaho, the album is, on the whole, a fascinating one. The Cikada Quartet, who made their label debut on Arild Andersen’s stellar Hyperborean, enact a clear, honed sound that works wonders with the chosen material. An overlooked New Series album, this deserves our full attention.

<< Morton Feldman: The Viola in My Life (ECM 1798 NS)
>> Keith Jarrett Trio: Always Let Me Go (ECM 1800/01)