Author: Tyran Grillo

Jon Balke/Siwan: Hafla (ECM 2726)

| Tyran Grillo

Jon Balke
Siwan
Hafla

Mona Boutchebak vocals, kwitra
Derya Turkan kemençe
Bjarte Eike Baroque violin, leader
Helge Norbakken percussion
Pedram Khavar Zamini tombak
Per Buhre vocals, viola
Jon Balke keyboards, electronics, tombak
Barokksolistene
Recorded May/June 2021
The Village Recording, Copenhagen
Engineer: Thomas Vang
Recording producer: Jon Balke
Mastering: Christoph Stickel
Cover photo: Sarah Murtaja
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
Release date: April 22, 2022

Hafla is the third go-around for keyboardist-composer Jan Balke and his group, Siwan. Taking inspiration from the cultural melting pot that was al-Andalus yet retying those threads into a friendship bracelet of striking originality, Balke and company retain the character of each idiom while achieving an overall design. Through the talents of Algerian singer Mona Boutchebak, Turkish kamancheh virtuoso Derya Turkan, Iranian tombak master Pedram Khavar Zamini, Norwegian percussionist Helge Norbakken, and violinist Bjarte Eike and his Barokksolistine, Balke summons the utmost familiarity from places and times that far outweigh our experiences as citizens of the 21st century. And while coronavirus restrictions prevented the ensemble from recording in the studio all at once, one would never guess the cutting and pasting required to bring the album to its present form in light of its hermetic coherence.

Balke’s compositions constitute the entire program, save for Boutchebak’s “Mirada Furtiva,” recalling a love so strong that it can never overstep the boundaries of modesty that keep it from consuming itself. Setting the poetry of Ibn Zaydun (1003-1071), the singer accompanies herself on the kwitra (Algerian lute), joined by low stirrings of wires and bows. Zaydun’s lover and the Ummayad princess of Córdoba, Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (1010-1091), is the verbal force behind the program’s opener, “Tarraquab” (Visit). Its lilting character immediately transports us into a cinematic world of strings and percussion. Boutchebak evokes flowing transpositions of bodies into spirits and back again, scenting the evening air with yearnings for touch.

Other poets who find themselves redrawn beneath the Siwan overlay include Ibn Sara As-Santarini (Santarém, 1043-1123), Ibn Sa’id al-Maghribi (Alcalá la Real, 1213-1286), Abu Bakr al-Turtushi (Tortosa, 1059-1126 or 1127), and Ibn Hazm (Córdoba, 994-1064), all of whom express an intimate relationship with that most sensuous interim before the dawn. Whether in the bright harmonies of “La Estrella Fugaz” (The Shooting Star) or the gentle strength of “Diálogo en la Noche” (Dialogue in the Night), we encounter selves divided by pining and expectation. And in “Enamorado de Júpiter” (In Love with Jupiter), the gloom of unrequited affections unfurls a canvas for the brush of a pained lyric:

Knowing well that I am the full moon in the clear sky,
You fell in love with Jupiter, the darkest planet.

Braiding the invisible forces of “Arrihu Aqwadu Ma Yakunu Li-Annaha” and the seeking qualities of “Uquállibu” (Absence), Boutchebak attaches threads of continuity between burning hearts that have only the moon as their messenger. Even the two instrumental interludes, “Línea Oscura” and “Saeta,” seem to communicate in verse, so that when images as powerful as those expressed throughout “Wadadtu” (Is There No Way), in which the desire to become one with another achieves fiery tension, rise to the surface, it is all we can do to hold on to the rhythms for assurance of reaching the shore. As violist Per Buhre sings this song in English against a wash of strings and kamancheh to bid us farewell, the linguistic change of clothing starches the ears, making us realize just how far our tongues have yet to travel.

Enrico Rava: Edizione Speciale (ECM 2672)

| Tyran Grillo

Enrico Rava
Edizione Speciale

Enrico Rava flugelhorn
Francesco Bearzatti tenor saxophone
Francesco Diodati guitar
Giovanni Guidi piano
Gabriele Evangelista double bass
Enrico Morello drums
Recorded live August 18, 2019
at Jazz Middelheim, Antwerp
by VRT-Vlaamse Radio en Televisie
Engineers: Peter Préal and Maarten Heynderickx
Mastering: Christoph Stickel
Cover design: Sascha Kleis
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
Release date: October 29, 2021

Recorded live at Antwerp’s Jazz Middelheim festival in 2019, the aptly named Edizione Speciale brings flugelhorn maestro Enrico Rava to the stage with tenor saxophonist Francesco Bearzatti, guitarist Francesco Diodati, pianist Giovanni Guidi, bassist Gabriele Evangelista, and drummer Enrico Morello. That many of these musicians are Rava’s mentees is obvious given the level of communication achieved in this performance. As Rava notes in the album’s press release, trust is at the core of everything this band does.

Pure excitement ignites the night as “Infant” hits the air. Its maximalism leaps into the listener’s heart, especially through the stellar guitar work and the detail-oriented drumming. Guidi further energizes the congregation while Evangelista gilds the frame with strong patterns of recognition. Bearzatti, too, grabs a prime patch of spotlight to strut his stuff. After only a brief introductory statement, the bandleader recedes to let his entourage do the talking on this 13-minute juggernaut. 

Michel Legrand’s “Once Upon A Summertime” and Rava’s “Theme For Jessica Tatum” make for solid company. Rava opens with the lyricism of classic cinema before Bearzatti paves the way for Guidi’s solo delicacies over a spirited rhythm section that harks to Rava’s second home of South America, where Brazilian vibes seep freshly through the mesh of time. After a round of solos, Bearzatti and Rava trading diary entries along the way, Evangelista puts a finer point on things. 

The sprawling introduction of “Wild Dance” (from Rava’s 2015 record of the same name) leads to Diodati’s surreal monologue, which Rava turns into an intermittent conversation. Electronic abrasions add a new face to this repertoire. After a fearless morph into “The Fearless Five,” of which Evangelista’s bass is the wick to the candle, “Le Solite Cose” finds the horns charging into a sparkling take on “Diva” (also heard on Wild Dance). As Rava re-enters the picture, joy abounds and carries over into the Cuban tune “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás” (previously heard on Guidi’s This Is The Day). This one rolls off the proverbial tongue with ease. Its pianistic undercurrent gives rise to artful rhythming from Morello and an ecstatic round of input. With us as vessels, the music is assured of a home worthy of its robustness and love for life.

John Scofield: s/t (ECM 2727)

| Tyran Grillo

John Scofield

John Scofield electric guitar and looper
Recorded August 2021
Top Story Studio, Katonah, NY
Engineer: Tyler McDiarmid
Mastering: Christoph Stickel
Cover photo: Luciano Rossetti
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
Release date: May 6, 2022

John Scofield’s latest for ECM features a set of solo guitar tunes backed by a looper, which he uses to establish progressions and contexts for his adroit picking. This long-awaited project, one that fans thought might never come, offers plenty of variety to meet that expectation. It all begins with a second-nature take on Keith Jarrett’s “Coral.” Launching into an improvisational spirit from the first breath and shifting into the melody only at the end, this interpretation features all of Scofield’s hallmarks: forthright expression, clear lines, and enough rough edges to guarantee authenticity. This is edible music.

Among all that follows, my ears are drawn immediately to Scofield’s originals. From the finely sculpted “Honest I Do” and the more whimsical “Since You Asked” to the emotionally charged “Mrs. Scofield’s Waltz,” he proves an uncanny ability to unravel moments of life into stories with beginnings, middles, and endings. The bluesy “Elder Dance” is a highlight. Scofield’s description says it all: “I picture older people (like me) doing a kind of lindy hop. I can picture it but I can’t do it.” This and the vibrant “Trance du Jour” make their recorded debut. Both are genuine pleasures to hear.

“It Could Happen to You” is the first among a handful of jazz standards. While recognizable from the start, it adds Scofield’s idiosyncratic touches, by turns fluid and angular. Even “Danny Boy” feels spontaneous in his brilliant hands, while the prison song “Junco Partner” bows its head in honor of the wrongfully incarcerated. Whereas “My Old Flame” and Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” favor message over medium, others, like “There Will Never Be Another You,” add new levels of interest to the tried and true. We end with the Hank Williams classic, “You Win Again,” speaking in the language of experience.

Despite my appreciation for all that transpires here, this isn’t my favorite of ECM’s 2022 releases. Scofield is, of course, a master who could sound like no one but himself. And while I dig the easygoing, unrushed quality of the playing, I find relatively little to chew on in the standards. On the other hand, there’s plenty to enjoy in Scofield’s originals, which gift these ears with fresh, honest sounds. I just wish we’d been given nothing but, especially for a self-titled record from an artist whose contributions to the art of jazz are every bit as flavorful as the old chestnuts he has roasted here. Many will disagree with this assessment, so don’t let me discourage you from enjoying an album that might very well grow more than show.

Heinz Holliger: Lunea (ECM New Series 2622)

| Tyran Grillo

Heinz Holliger
Lunea

Christian Gerhaher baritone
Julian Banse soprano
Ivan Ludlow baritone
Sarah Maria Sun soprano
Annette Schönmüller soprano
Philharmonia Zürich
Basler Madrigalisten
Heinz Holliger conductor
Recorded live March 2018
Opernhaus Zürich
Recording producer and editing: Andreas Werner
Recording engineer: Stefan Hächler
Assistant engineers: Alice Fischer and Philip Erdin
Cover sketches by Heinz Holliger / photo by Thomas Wunsch
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
Co-production of ECM Records/Opera Zurich/SRF 2 Kultur
Release date: April 22, 2022

I am my own echo, but one eternally rigid and pinned down.
An echo nailed to the rock.

Heinz Holliger’s Lunea, described by the Swiss composer as his “dream opera,” grew out of a song cycle of the same name for baritone and piano. By 2017, Holliger had reworked it into its present form for the stage. Based on the demise of Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850), who scribbled down outbursts during his years in an asylum, Lunea anagrams his name as a way of illuminating his poetic psychosis, thus hinting at the linguistic fragmentations we will encounter. As noted by baritone Christian Gerhaher, who seems born to sing this role: “Holliger presents these attempts on the part of the stricken poet to record his indescribable yet exquisitely traversed suffering—frightful and vivid experiences incapable of being communicated to another being.” And yet, communicate he does through a characteristically exquisite ear for nuance.

Whether by instinct or design, all of the artists of Holliger’s incidental interest, from Friedrich Hölderlin to Robert Schumann, are bound by the tattered thread of mental illness. His willingness to give them a mouthpiece through the score, of which language is a key instrument, finds a willing accomplice in Händl Klaus, whose libretto contextualizes 23 “leaves” in a space without linear order. Holliger’s approach to the text is microscopic in spirit but grand in scope. And yet, as Roman Brotbeck observes, “[N]othing is blurred; everything is as clear as glass and laid out by Holliger with maximum lucidity.” 

Holliger and Klaus pieced the opera together through fragments written on paper slips, glued with phrases (both musical and oral-motor) into shape. In doing so, they sought to resolve each sentence (or even word within it) through interpretation. If any plot can be discerned in all of this, it is embodied in the character of Lenau himself, whose cogent coterie of family members and acquaintances populates a bare environment like projections of his many sides. Lenau’s alter ego is Anton Xaver Schurz (1794-1859), a constant companion throughout his illness who also married his sister and published a nearly 800-page biography of Lenau in 1855. The women in Lenau’s life, including Sophie von Löwenthal (a platonic lover), Marie Behrends (his fiancée), and sister Therese, lend worldliness (if not also wordiness) to his isolation.

Holliger’s love for speech abounds, as when he incorporates the character of Justinus Kerner, a physician and close friend who, in 1850 (the year of Lenau’s death) began making what he called “klecksographs”—inkblot pictures mirrored by folding pieces of paper into symmetrical images. Following this, the opera is symmetrically arranged around the stroke Lenau experienced in September 29, 1844. Long before that, the opening speaks is as if through a layer of rice paper. Low reeds and an intoning chorus give way to Lenau’s amorous deteriorations. This is the asylum, a space in which the mind has free reign even as the body is contained. Such is the contradiction of operatic space: a stage that delineates mise-en-scène while opening our hearts to its inner flames. Holliger understands this in both the most traditional and postmodern sense.

For Lenau, “Man is a beachcomber at the sea of eternity,” and so might we call the instruments, among which the violin, cimbalom (Hungarian dulcimer), and bassoon move as characters in their own right. Each slices mortality at a different angle, offering us unrepeatable cross-sections of emotional sediment. As waves of utterances and choral echoes navigate the scrapheap of a broken mind, we are privy to glimpses of recovery and tension in kind. Some of the most profound moments are shared between Lenau and Sophie. Their wordless breathing in the Fourth Leaf palpitates the ears. And it is Sophie who, in Leaf Nine, brings the most hopeful beauties into focus. Such respite is brief and occasional, as in the skyward harmonies of the Sixth Leaf, whereas the most powerful interruptions (such as that by Sophie again in the Eleventh Leaf) make the morbid grays and charcoals of the opera’s fulcrum that much more morose.

In one key scene, played out in the Fourteenth Leaf, Lenau leaps from the window in desperation before bowing the violin in a cathartic dance of healing. What follows from here to the end is a reversion into childhood (Fifteenth Leaf) before solitary madness sets in. Turning as a revolving door from one state of mind to another, the chorus voices the multiplicity of his demise. The final part is a gravelly expression of death borders that burrows into the reptilian brain.

While Lunea is a chain of intimate fascinations as only Holliger can link, it is best appreciated with the booklet in hand, ready to absorb the fragments at hand and assemble them into your own whole. Its brilliance comes to life through the heartbeat of its concepts. Then again, the disorientation of not knowing where our ears might land next is appropriate enough when scrutinizing a mind that might never have demanded more. Hence the significance of Gerhaher being the only singer who doesn’t perform multiple rolls, at once emphasizing Lenau’s splintered cognizance and his insistence on maintaining an identity through it all. For a man who saw the moon as “a luminous, drifting tomb,” death was, perhaps, the only certainty.

Ferenc Snétberger/Keller Quartett: Hallgató (ECM New Series 2653)

| Tyran Grillo

Ferenc Snétberger
Keller Quartett
Hallgató

Ferenc Snétberger guitar
András Keller, Zsófia Környei violin
Gábor Homoki viola
László Fenyő violoncello
Gyula Lázár double bass
Concert recording, December 2018
Liszt Academy, Grand Hall, Budapest
Engineers: Stefano Amerio and Gergely Lakatos
Cover photo: Atilla Kleb
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: February 12, 2021

After making his ECM debut with the live recording In Concert and the jazzier follow-up Titok, guitarist Ferenc Snétberger returns to the label with Hallgató. Recorded live in December of 2018, it positions his strings amid those of the Keller Quartett and Gyula Lázár on double bass. The focus this time is on Snétberger as a composer, with three of his works standing as pillars of the program. His Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra (1994/95; arr. 2008) spans three substantial movements. Subtitled “In Memory of My People” and written for the 50th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust, it balances precise notation with liberating cadenzas. “Hallgató” (a somewhat ambiguous word meaning “listener”) sets the scene with guitar alone before the quintet’s entrance, feeling out the landscape upon which we are about to walk with these fine musicians as our guides. “Emlékek” (memories) is our first waystation. Romantic yet devoid of excess, its nourishment fortifies us for the fancier footwork of “Tánc” (dance), in which the catharsis we have been seeking is realized, reminding us of what vibrancy feels like. Snétberger’s Rhapsody No. 1 for Guitar and Orchestra (2005; arr. 2008) is equally dynamic, if less angular. Like a figure sashaying between historical buildings, it navigates city streets with the nostalgia of experience on its shoulders. In the journey between them, we come across Your Smile for solo guitar, a timely song without words.

Works from other composers fill in the gaps with vital organs. Two songs from John Dowland (1563-1626) are the subject of astonishing arrangements by David Warin Solomons. “I saw my lady weep” and “Flow, my tears,” both from 1600, show the undying spirit of this music, the guitar adding a lute-like touch to the backdrop while strings weave their tapestry in its light. The latter tune, a duet for guitar and cello, speaks in an unmistakable nocturnal tongue. The program takes its deepest breaths in the String Quartet No. 8 in C minor of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975). Written in 1960 for victims of fascism and war, its opening and closing Largos are played crosswise, lending a graceful urgency to their differences. The second movement, by contrast, is delicate without pulling the punches of its traumatic reveals, while the Allegretto dazzles with its rougher qualities. The Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber (1910-1981), taken from the String Quartet, op. 11, of 1936, is also included, rendered with a vocal quality I’ve rarely heard.

All told, this is a superb program from world-class artists. More than the performances, however, Snétberger’s writing scintillates. Such cinema requires no camera and only the heart as a projection screen. What begins with a yearning for peace opens into dance-like wonder, but only briefly before lowering the head in slumber to chase resolutions behind closed eyes. Because, in the end, memories may be nothing more than dreams we haven’t yet forgotten.

Tigran Mansurian: Con anima (ECM New Series 2687)

| Tyran Grillo

Tigran Mansurian
Con anima

Varty Manouelian violin
Boris Allakhverdyan clarinet
Michael Kaufman violoncello
Steven Vanhauwaert piano
Kim Kashkashian viola
Tatevik Mokatsian piano
Movses Pogossian violin
Teng Li viola
Karen Ouzounian violoncello
Recorded January-April 2019
Evelyn and Mo Ostin Music Center
of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, Los Angeles
Recording engineer: Benjamin Maas
Cover photo: Jean-Christophe Béchet
Mastering: Christoph Stickel
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
Release date: November 6, 2020

Although “refined” has taken on elitist nuances over the years, Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian cuts to the root by following the true etymology of the word as a return to purity. In this all-chamber program, conceived as an 80th birthday gift by violinist Movses Pogossian and violist Kim Kashkashian, Mansurian’s combination of Armenian and European influences, sacred and secular alike, changes form as if viewed through a kaleidoscope turned in methodical wonder.

In the Agnus Dei of 2006, interpreted here by violinist Varty Manouelian, clarinetist Boris Allakhverdyan, cellist Michael Kaufman, and pianist Steven Vanhauwaert, one can almost feel his presence in the room. The simultaneous awareness of separation and overlap in the composing and the performing allows listeners to take the opening movement in many ways: as a mirror or opaque surface, liquid or solid, past or future. The clarinet is the glue that binds this scripture, the strings dialects, and the piano keys the pages they call home. The second movement indicates stirrings within, cradling dark exultation, while the third movement barely exceeds a whisper. As in the sonic architecture of Alexander Knaifel, the instruments humble themselves at the feet of the Spirit.

The Sonata da Chiesa (2015) bears a dedication to the priest and composer Komitas Vardapet (1869-1935), whose quiet legacy has permeated a range of previous ECM recordings, not least of all Mansurian’s own. In the hands of Kashkashian and pianist Tatevik Mokatsian, the first movement suspends itself before writhing with historical awareness. Kashkashian’s sincerity and Mokatsian’s energetic approach to even the most delicate gestures draws two lines of flight that gradually become one in the second movement. Like hope and reality, they are distant until something sacred finds commonality in them.

The title piece (2006-2007) is scored for two violins (Pogossian and Manouelian), violas (Kashkashian and Teng Li), and cellos (Karen Ouzounian and Kaufman). Being a meditation on Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 13, the viola is of liturgical importance. Incredibly, the higher the tones, the darker the sky grows over its catharsis. Next are the String Trio (2008) and String Quartet No. 3 (1993). If Con anima was closer in mood to Shostakovich, the trio is closer in form, moving ever closer to the shaded drawl of its final movement, while the quartet assumes an inverted progression from subterranean fields to aboveground terrains. Finally, Die Tänzerin for violin and viola (2014) shines a light on Armenian folk dance, bringing Bartók to mind.

As convenient as the above comparisons may be, they do nothing to capture the atmosphere of this music. Mansurian, by self-characterization, creates a crossroads of speech and silence that cannot necessarily be articulated by either. Given the honesty and truth with which he fills his cup, not every question he poses demands an answer. Searching without finding becomes its own gift in a world hell-bent on exploiting destinations.

Erkki-Sven Tüür: Lost Prayers (ECM New Series 2666)

| Tyran Grillo

Erkki-Sven Tüür
Lost Prayers

Harry Traksmann violin
Leho Karin violoncello
Marrit Gerretz-Traksmann piano
Tanja Tetzlaff violoncello
Signum Quartett
Florian Donderer violin
Annette Walther violin
Xandi van Dijk viola
Thomas Schmitz violoncello
Recorded April 2019 at Sendesaal Bremen
Engineer: Christophe Franke
Cover photo: Thomas Wunsch
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
Release date: November 13, 2020

Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
–James 4:3

Since debuting on ECM’s New Series in 1996 with the inimitable Crystallisatio, the humanity of Erkki-Sven Tüür has revealed itself through score after score in search of a purer distillation of his uniquely “vectorial” approach to composition. With Lost Prayers, his first chamber-only program for the label, he may have found his clearest alloy yet in the grander scheme of elements that informs his far-reaching spirit. No stranger to meshing contradictory elements into coherent wholes without capitulating to monolithic dogma, striking a path between mathematical precision and organic flow, he taps into something familiar that allows us to bypass the pleasantries of getting-to-know-you conversation, going straight into dialogues of faith, reason, and love.

Violinist Harry Traksmann, cellist Leho Karin, and pianist Marrit Gerretz-Traksmann embrace Fata Morgana (2002) as a child in need of comfort. The opening violin arpeggios and piano chords over crunchy cello double stops work into a controlled frenzy, indicative of an inner turmoil such as only a fresher soul could lay bare. As molecules join and separate, time loses all shape. Refrains, each a return to self before disembodiment resumes, stand out for their subtlety. Leaping gestures are quickly sublimated by quicksand motifs, pulling the listener into subterranean spaces where notes cease to matter, giving way instead to textural authority. The ending tremors hint more at glory than physical compromise. And while something about this piece leaves me feeling homesick, the same musicians close with a sense of family in Lichttürme (2017), a veritable lighthouse in sound. The violin is the glassy lens through which its glow is magnified, the cello the tower housing it, and the piano a tickle of awareness in the sailor’s cerebral cortex.

Between those poles, violinist Florian Donderer and cellist Tanja Tetzlaff chart points of continuity between night and day in Synergie (2010) before the Signum Quartett’s sensitive rendition of the String Quartet No. 2 (2012), from which this album gets its name. Like a conversation between epochs, it shifts from empathetic and coherent to cross-wired and fragmentary, its answers only becoming clear when taken in the aggregate. At its loudest moments, the notecraft soars; at its quietest, it scuttles along the ground toward agitations of light. 

Tüür’s music is never content with endings. It dwells not in our bodies but in the natural materials our bodies partake of, harvest, and transform. Even as the instruments dip themselves in a font of inspiration, the water’s surface has been sprinkled with the lycopodium of honest self-reflection, leaving them dry. This is Revelation as Genesis: the potter’s vessel of our century broken into pieces and refashioned in the image of revival.

Dino Saluzzi: Albores (ECM 2638)

| Tyran Grillo

Dino Saluzzi
Albores

Dino Saluzzi bandoneón
Recorded February-October 2019
Saluzzi Music Studios, Buenos Aires
Recording engineer: Néstor Diaz
Cover photo: Lisa Franz
Mastering: Christoph Stickel
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: November 6, 2020

Whereas many of us who once painted with fingers as a child moved on to brushes, Dino Saluzzi seems to have ignored that transition. On Albores, an album born of reckoning, Saluzzi renders what Luján Baudino in his liner note calls an “inner landscape.”

“Adiós Maestro Kancheli” opens on a somber note by paying respects to the late Georgian composer, who passed away in 2019. And yet, what we are given is more than a tribute or homage; rather, it is an identity without personhood, a force that animates the spirit of bygone days. Such redemptions of memory are as integral to Saluzzi’s language as sunlight and rain are to crops. The levels of introspection so organically achieved on “Ausencias” and “Íntimo” are what only decades of artistic experience could elicit. Such power of restraint, he reminds us, is foreign to our younger selves. It is the method of a heart that knows only the scrape of life’s cuneiform.

One need only bathe in the waters of “Don Caye” (an ode to his father’s music) to know that if the bandoneón were a film camera, Saluzzi would be one of its greatest living auteurs. “Écuyère” reorients the lens on a larger scale. Its prosaic qualities illuminate characters whose motives, while ancient, feel as familiar as our skins. The same holds for “Ficción,” a more jagged mountain carved by patience. Like “La Cruz del Sur (2da cadencia),” it rises among the very Andes in which it was born.

Hope is most apparent in “Según me cuenta la vida – Milonga,” a language seeking a mouth through which to be spoken. What dances in one moment turns during the next into a forlorn gaze toward a horizon that could have been. And yet, the trajectory that has brought him here feels inevitable. As in the closing “Ofrenda – Tocata,” it has always been inside, waiting to be sung.

Despite its generally slow pacing, there is plenty of verve to discover throughout Albores. Saluzzi’s energy floats just out of grasp so that we are always seeking its next steps. It is also a meditation on the lung capacity of the bandoneón itself. It breathes for those who no longer breathe. It breathes for those who have yet to breathe. It breathes for all who continue to breathe. Hints of light between its buttons are enough to remind us that even as the sun sets where we stand, elsewhere, it is dawn.

Schiff/Widmann: Brahms Clarinet Sonatas (ECM New Series 2621)

| Tyran Grillo

András Schiff
Jörg Widmann
Johannes Brahms: Clarinet Sonatas

András Schiff piano
Jörg Widmann clarinet
Recorded May 2018
Historischer Reistadel, Neumarkt
Engineer: Stephan Schellmann
Cover photo: Jan Jedlička
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: October 2, 2020

In the opening gestures of the Sonata in E-flat major, op. 120/2 (1894), for clarinet and piano, it’s difficult not to feel the breath of life that moved its composer, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), to such rapture in the latter years of his life. As the second of two such sonatas and his final chamber work, it is a testimony not only to Richard Mühlfeld, the master clarinetist of his day whom Brahms called “the nightingale of the orchestra,” but also to the self-effacement with which Brahms struggled throughout his creative life. And so, when considering the enduring interpretations here by pianist András Schiff and clarinetist Jörg Widmann, one must understand that without a love for every note, the bars between them would erode. Thus, Widmann gives colorations to the breath at every turn, while Schiff understands the role of the piano in Brahms’s chamber works as more than an accompaniment, giving it the fullness of expression it requires. The second movement, a rousing Allegro appassionato, is quintessential Brahms for its controlled drama and balance of fine motor skills, all tied together with a rustic charm. The final movement works patience into the virtue of exuberance.

The Sonata in f minor, op. 120/1 (1894), is even more dynamic. After a gradual first movement, the second unravels like paint from a brush, finding favor in the final trails of each stroke. The restrained Allegretto that follows sets up a rousing Vivace, the ebullience of which dazzles the senses. Given its symphonic textures, it’s no wonder the piece lent itself so gloriously to Luciano Berio’s orchestral transcription in 1986.

Between these giants of clarinet literature are Widmann’s five Intermezzi (2010) for piano. As tributes to both Schiff (to whom it is dedicated) and Brahms, they show a modern heart in love with the blood of tradition pumping through it. The central intermezzo, at 12 minutes, digs deepest into the spirit of this emotional transference. Throughout, we encounter waking moments in an otherwise dreamlike mise-en-scène. Nevertheless, clarity abounds.