ECM Records

Patrick and Thomas Demenga: Lux Aeterna (ECM New Series 1695)

| Tyran Grillo

Patrick Demenga
Thomas Demenga
Lux Aeterna

Patrick Demenga cello
Thomas Demenga cello
Recorded November 1998, Propstei St. Gerold
Engineer: Teije van Geest
Produced by Manfred Eicher

This album is a special one for having introduced me to the awe-inspiring pathos of Alexander Knaifel. Here, the phenomenally talented Demenga brothers give their most heartfelt performance in the composer’s Lux Aeterna. It is, by no simple means, a glorious meditation on the notion of divine light. Its structure is simple: high harmonics on the cellos give way to words intoned by the musicians themselves (cast in the score as “psalm singers”) before combining with strings, so that song is produced from all aspects of the body, through gesture and through sacred vibrations. A profound and moving piece, played with utter sensitivity and a dedicated sense of direction, this title work is more than the album’s theme, but also its genesis. One cannot help but be comforted in its ethereal embrace.

We might hope this mood could be sustained throughout the entire program, but the remaining offerings are no less engaging in their own right, comprising an intriguing potpourri drawn from the duo’s longstanding repertoire. Thomas offers up his own piece, Duo? o, Du…, an insightful look into the mind of this singular (albeit twinned) musician that delights with its deep-throated croaks and delicate relay of harmonics.

French composer Jean Barrière (1707-1747) was the finest cellist of his day, but his music is hardly ever recorded. Despite its upbeat tempi and virtuosic scoring, there is solemnity to be found in his G-major Sonata No. 10. Its buoyancy presages the Mozartean paradigm by half a century and rests on laurels of comforting fluidity. At certain moments the cellos ring out in lush, sweeping harmonies, leaving the bass line to float like a ghostly implication in the corner of our mental eye. The raw Adagio plays like a viola da gamba divided into its complementary personalities and captivates with its Baroque sensibilities. The resonant space in which the album is recorded ensures the cellos are given the widest berth possible, stretching the sonata’s third movement into a majestic fabric. After this tour de force, the Demengas change gears with a piece from Swiss compatriot Roland Moser. A student of Sándor Veress and Wolfgang Fortner, Moser writes in feverish yet contained bursts, as evidenced in the dizzying pizzicati and sharp bowings of his Wendungen. A sprinkling of silence ensures that the immediacy of its drama stays true to its quieter affirmations. Barry Guy’s Redshift brings us full circle to Kniafel’s invocation of light. The title references a process by which, not unlike a Doppler effect in sound, changes the visible spectrum as distance increases. With bows a-bouncing the cellists reap a varied crop of meditations and improvisations through which a cunning rhythmic acuity is brought to fruition. We end on a lullaby, left to writhe like Odysseus strapped to the ship that threatens to sail him into a song that will mean his demise.

<< Peter Ruzicka: String Quartets (ECM 1694 NS)
>> John Cage: The Seasons (ECM 1696 NS)

Frank Peter Zimmermann/Heinrich Schiff: Honegger, et al. (ECM New Series 1912)

| Tyran Grillo

 

Frank Peter Zimmermann and Heinrich Schiff
play the music of:
Arthur Honegger
Bohuslav Martinů
Johann Sebastian Bach
Matthias Pintscher
Maurice Ravel

Frank Peter Zimmermann violin
Heinrich Schiff violoncello
Recorded August 2004, Propstei St. Gerold, and January 2005, Festeburgkirche, Frankfurt am Main
Engineer: Stephan Schellmann
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Frank Peter Zimmermann and Heinrich Schiff make their ECM debuts with this scintillating program of music for violin and cello. Tapping into a surprisingly fecund repertoire for a too often neglected combination and dusting off a few under-recognized masterpieces of chamber literature along the way, the duo brings two decades of collaboration to the table for a rich banquet of sonic delights. The glue that holds the album together comes by way of Johann Sebastian Bach in two canons from his Kunst der Fuge. The seamless bifurcation between the musicians enhances their contrapuntal adhesion and recasts the surrounding works as ghostly echoes of untold virtue.

The rarely heard Sonatine VI for Violin and Violoncello in E minor (1932) of Arthur Honegger emits light with every stroke of the bow. With Ravel-like ebullience and a touch of Dvořák, its melodic trajectories converge at the listener’s heart. Skillful navigations between the energetic and the lyrical give the piece an organic undertone. Whereas a loving Andante tightens into a braid of introverted expression, the final Allegro breaks the violin into pieces against the punctuations of a Bartókian cello and ends with a flourish of exhilarating diffusion. Bohuslav Martinů’s Duo for Violin and Violoncello No. 1, H. 157 (1927) leads us next into a whimsical Preludium, balancing indifference and unity in two robust melodic lines. Here, the instrumentalists are less distinguishable in their new harmonically transcendent territory. With a flick of the proverbial wrists, a skillful Rondo unveils the composer’s ecstatic charm in greater clarity. A brilliant new discovery from the young Matthias Pintscher awaits in Study I (2004), an auditory exploration of “Treatise on the Veil” by artist Cy Twombly.

Cy Twombly: Treatise on the Veil (Second Version), 1970

As the newest statement on the album, it forms a tight circle with Bach, along which the other pieces may be comfortably plotted. As breathy sighs run their fingers along even vaguer harmonic edges, Pintscher’s deceptive minimalism reveals a wealth of vocal atmospheres.

Upon the death of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel composed this Sonata for Violin and Violoncello (1922) in memory of the composer to whom he was most often compared. As if to assert his own distinct voice, he tried a new approach by stripping the sonata to its barest elements. The result is a string quartet halved without any loss of density. The challenges therein seem only to have urged him on, producing one of his most vividly realized works. The sonata is ecstatic, beautifully played, and masterfully constructed, weaving its way through an Orphic center before breaching an exuberant outer shell.

Overall, this is a fascinating album filled to the brim with utterly gorgeous music. One might say the two instruments come together like the hands of a keyboard, only here they sing through more sustained interactions with strings. The piano is most certainly not missed, and indeed would find no room to stand.

John Cage: The Seasons (ECM New Series 1696)

| Tyran Grillo

John Cage
The Seasons

Margaret Leng Tan prepared piano, toy piano
American Composers Orchestra
Dennis Russell Davies conductor
Recorded January 1997, SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center Theatre A, New York
Engineer: Gregory Squires
Produced by Manfred Eicher

“The responsibility of the artist consists in perfecting his work so that it may become attractively disinteresting.”
–John Cage

The Seasons brings together not a few major firsts. It is the first ECM appearance for John Cage (reason enough to own this disc) as well as for longtime friend and interpreter, pianist Margaret Leng Tan. It also contains the premier recording of Seventy-Four, Cage’s first orchestral score, played and conducted by the very musicians to whom it was dedicated. The other compositions featured here date from before the composer’s allegiance to “non-intention” and indicate a mind priming itself for enlightened calm.

Seventy-Four (1992) was named for the number of musicians set to perform it and, with the assistance of Lou Harrison and Virgil Thomson in the scoring, was to be one of the composer’s last pieces. The musicians at the orchestra’s outer rim determine time signatures at their own whim, thereby eliciting a markedly different performance every time around its composed center. Its first strains reach our ears almost unexpectedly in a rendering that combines total abreaction with superb “breath” control. Like a wheel that never stops turning, it renews itself with every revolution. In many ways, such a piece showcases what an orchestra is truly capable of, what distinguishes it from other instrumental groupings as the fragile collective that it is. Certain colors stand out, such as those painted by a silvery violin and the fluttering cello toward the piece’s conclusion, both drowned in the overwhelming totality of its sound.

Although the current orchestral version of The Seasons (1947) differs significantly from that for solo piano, we find the same red thread running through its core. This “considered improvisation” was a commission for New York City’s Ballet Society and prompted at least one critic to herald Cage as one of the twentieth century’s greatest orchestral colorists. Working in both painterly and programmatic modes, each of its gestures leaves a delible mark. Winter may fall like a snowflake, but it is also subject to unexpected gales and flash blizzards; Spring is an earthquake enhanced by the delicate trills of its aftershocks; Summer is a shimmering mass of good intentions gone rancid in a blinding glare; and Fall curls up like a cosmic roly-poly into a tight defensive sphere.

Although the prepared piano is one of Cage’s most immediately recognizable innovations, there remains an innocence about its construction, stemming as it does from that incomparable urge to leave one’s creative signature, however fleeting, on the immediate environment. The prepared pianist’s manipulations merely accentuate the indeterminacy of the musical act through an audible catalogue. As a centerpiece of the Concerto for Prepared Piano (1950/51), it is like a box that has been broken and rearranged. The music is a fractal, becoming ever more microscopic toward the edges. Very little marks one movement from another, for the pauses between them are shorter than those integrated into the movements proper, nothing more than inhalations to greater heavenly circulations.

Because Cage’s world is defined so much by chance (or is it the other way around?), the alternate version of Seventy-Four that follows becomes a wholly new utterance, suitably cleansing our palates for the whimsical Suite for Toy Piano (1948), which conjoins not a few contradictory creative processes. On the one hand, we have an instrument that is not normally defined as such, an object that has been subjectively removed from its intended context. The musician must, in a sense, retrain herself when learning its rules, for anyone who has experimented with a toy piano at the “appropriate” age must incorporate an entirely new layer of formal training into what was once an informal desire. It is a delightful inversion of the classical paradigm that manages to hold its own throughout, so that when we hear the same piece suddenly re-imagined for orchestra, it almost seems to lose something of its musicality as it slips into a new aural skin. The fourth movement is particularly beautiful in its transposed form.

There are some who believe that recording Cage is an antithetical project, that committing just one of infinite possibilities to record destroys the beauty of its indeterminacy. And yet, as one who enlarged and ruptured the musical landscape like no other, Cage has found a comfortable home on The Seasons, one that I am sure welcomes any incidental sonic guests that may happen to drop by during the listening.

<< Patrick and Thomas Demenga: Lux Aeterna (ECM 1695 NS)
>> John Dowland: In Darkness Let Me Dwell (ECM 1697 NS)

Peter-Anthony Togni: Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae (ECM New Series 2129)

| Tyran Grillo

 

Peter-Anthony Togni
Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae

Jeff Reilly bass clarinet
Elmer Iseler Singers
Rebecca Whelan soprano
Lydia Adams conductor
Recorded October 2008 at All Saints Cathedral, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Produced by Manfred Eicher

I am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the day.
–Prophet Jeremiah

Nova Scotian composer Peter-Anthony Togni gets his long overdue inauguration into ECM’s hallowed halls with this gorgeously conceived “concerto” setting of Jeremiah’s Book of Lamentations. A bass clarinet dons improvisatory clothing as the Prophet in question, wandering the streets of a complacent populace, represented here by a modest vocal ensemble. Jeff Reilly is the virtuoso soloist and provides a nuanced performance against the choir’s own measured readings.

Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae (2007) is structured in five sections, each an ode to speech, time, and place. “Quomodo Sedet Sola Civitas” (How doth the city sit solitary) bemoans Jerusalem’s manifold miseries with a long oration from Reilly, whose technical prowess is shown to suitable effect as the voice that will not be heeded. The choir lifts eyes, only to blind itself in the glare of a reality it wishes not to accept. A dazzling soprano soloist draws her line of wisdom through this tangled argument, carrying us with grace into “Quomodo Dominus Filiam Sion Obtexit” (How hath the lord covered with obscurity the daughter of Zion). Jeremiah opens his arms again, only to be met with a mob of resistance. The choir raises its arms, but can only bring them down upon itself like a wrathful wound. As we open into “Silentio” (Silence), the Prophet pleads in frustration, where he is met with more urgency. These outbursts only serve to heighten the solace in whose name they are offered, each a stepping-stone to selfless understanding. This process offers our first intimation of hope, a touch of stasis before the gales of the next poem whip across our hearts. The case of “Quomodo Obscuratum Est Aurum” (How is the gold become dim) is quickly usurped by the soprano’s return, which again traces the people’s unwise actions to the very destruction their ways has wrought, before salvation returns with full force in “Recordare, Domine” (Remember, o Lord), bidding the Prophet to lift his voice in harmony as the light of Zion crashes on the shores of the suffering in which they all share.

While one may wish to draw an affinity to ECM’s popular Officium project, pairing as it does an aleatoric reed with relatively structured voices, the ascetic Lamentatio carves a distinct contemplative space in which the composer’s voice is duly heard. A harmonious marriage of form, production, and content, this is a welcome new addition to the label family that bears repeated aural and spiritual consideration.

Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 4 and 5 – Fellner/Nagano (ECM New Series 2114)

| Tyran Grillo

 

Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concertos Nos. 4 and 5

Till Fellner piano
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Kent Nagano conductor
Concert recordings, May and November 2008 at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, Montréal
Engineer: Markus Heiland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

In his liner essay, Paul Griffiths rightly credits Ludwig van Beethoven with having given the orchestra “a voice,” and in the composer’s final concertos offered here we have even greater reason to bask in his voluminous discourse, made all the more so for the temperamental piano at its center. These two musical forces, strings and keys, “speak to us by speaking to each other.” Such plurivocity, Griffiths further contends, is only heightened by the performances on this disc. Austrian pianist Till Fellner, who previously graced us with his Bach interpretations, now enacts an equally contested dramaturgy in these mighty, yet ever delicate masterworks. At the podium is Kent Nagano, a personal operatic favorite who treats the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal like a giant chorus far too expansive to be constricted by human throats.

Fellner (photo by Ben Ealovega)

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major op. 58 (1805/06)
While most concertos of this magnitude would begin with an orchestral prelude of sorts into which the soloist may be dropped like so much creative ink, here the latter opens the floor in the tonic before spreading its fingers into the dominant key. The composer holds our attention throughout its entire 19-minute expanse, a concerto in and of itself; no small feat considering that it twists the barest of thematic cores into a veritable unicorn’s horn of charging force, brought home in the glorious final chords. The second movement entrances us with its attendant imagery of Orpheus taming the Furies before Hades. Having only melody to hold on to in its shadows, we put our trust in this music completely. Our abstruse confusion is over before we know it, and as we are swept up in the ensuing Rondo we find that we’ve been dreaming all along.

Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major op. 73 (1809/10)
Despite having earned the nickname of “Emperor,” this concerto is, Griffiths reminds us, nothing if monarchical. Opening in tutti and with a graceful cadenza, the Allegro charts a formidable exposition through landscapes unchanging and deciduous alike. Dancing configurations in the first half underscore not only a depth of virtuosity, but also of melodic effect, while denser punctuations in the second thread our minds with braids of protracted thematic closure. A pensive Adagio heralds ever so subtly the newly emerging Romanticism of the age. Fellner’s careful pedaling ensures that we get the most out of every phrase as the piano descends toward the lone bassoon that bleeds into the concluding Rondo. One can almost feel the hems of dresses and tailored lapels tracing their grand circles in the air as the instrumentalists engage in a lavish dance. Beethoven sweeps his brush through the piano’s densest colors and uses these to paint a rousing portrait of epic intimacies.

Both of these concertos are dedicated to Archduke Rudolph of Austria (1788-1831), a student of Beethoven’s who would also become a great patron. That such powerful creations might sometimes not exist without likeminded support is a sad yet potent reminder of the invisible tug-of-war between music and economics. Thankfully, ECM’s finely chosen interpretations and engineering betray none of these politics and present the music in all its richness without any strings attached. We see this in Nagano’s palpable free spirit, in the orchestra’s every nuance, and in Fellner’s attentiveness to each cumulative set of notes. He plays the middle movements faster than most, giving them new life for a new century, plowing ahead with the immensity of fortitude and passion that spawned them. Bravos all around.

Paul Giger: Vindonissa (ECM 1836)

| Tyran Grillo

 

Paul Giger
Vindonissa

Paul Giger violin, violino d’amore, viola d’amore, footbells
Robert Dick c-flute, glissando flute, bass flute in c, bass flute in f, contrabass flute
Satoshi Takeishi percussion
Recorded June 1998 and 2000

Modern-day gypsy, musical traveler, melodic nomad: call him what you will, but Paul Giger has created some of the most haunting music to ever grace your ears. Adding yet another branch to the bold tree that began with Chartres and which was expanded in three subsequent projects, the Swiss violinist/composer beguiles us yet again with this more whimsical, though no less trenchant, collaboration. On Vindonissa, he is joined by two outstanding musicians. Robert Dick is a truly revolutionary American flutist and composer who has taken his instrument to new heights. A pioneer in extended techniques, design, and improvisation, he is a welcome presence on ECM. Percussionist Satoshi Takeishi is a kindred itinerant spirit, and has worked with a wide range of musicians, including Anthony Braxton and Joe Zeytoonian. A skilled improviser in his own right, his openness to the musical moment is a no-brainer for inclusion here.

Giger bookends this yawning chasm of life with a meditation on solo violin from which the album gets its name, distilling from the chromatic banality of open strings a potent tincture of dissonance and transcendence. Such lone signposts dot the album with moments of pause, as in the lilting Introitus and Kyrie. The group tracks contrast with open spaces and colorful mysticism. Starting with the pointillism of Oogoogajoo and ending on the likeminded An Ear On Buddha’s Belly, these intersections of time and circumstance seem to grow organically, as if in waves. Dick and Takeishi walk comfortably alongside Giger, bringing vital human energy to the untouchable center of Lava Coils and even greater earthly care to Fractal Joy, the most profound triangle therein. Gloria et Tarantella, in which Giger rocks the viola d’amore to the beat of his own foot bells, is the album’s masterpiece and builds to a frenzy of Tartini-like exuberance. With every note, it burns a root and follows its smoke ever skyward.

Giger is easily one of the greatest violinists of our time, not only because of his technical prowess, but more importantly for his ability to grab hold of a melodic handle and never let go until it asks him too. Such talent can take some getting used to, especially in the presence of other musicians, but I think this is an album in which one can rest assured that a meeting of three bodies, minds, and worldviews can indeed find harmony through sound’s untold alchemies.

John Dowland: In Darkness Let Me Dwell (ECM New Series 1697)

| Tyran Grillo

John Dowland
In Darkness Let Me Dwell

John Potter tenor
Maya Homburger baroque violin
Stephen Stubbs lute
John Surman soprano saxophone and bass clarinet
Barry Guy double-bass
Recorded January 1999, Forde Abbey, Dorset
Engineer: Markus Heiland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Weep you no more, sad fountains;
What need you flow so fast?

So begins ECM’s first foray into the sounds and songs of John Dowland (1563-1626), Renaissance lutenist and a songwriter for all ages. While many have captures the dance of voice and strings by which he set his chisel to the lathe of courtly melancholia, the group of musicians assembled on this disc manages to carve something refreshingly immediate. Explains tenor John Potter, creative director of what would come to be known as the Dowland Project, “This is the first time anyone’s approached Dowland not from an ‘early music’ angle, but simply as music. We’re working with Dowland as though he were still with us.” The present recording foregrounds early music’s malleability and upholds Dowland as a great improviser. It is precisely this spirit that coheres Potter and his rogues-in-arms. Stephen Stubbs provides the requisite lute, and with it a boundless cache of creative energy for all to share. It was at the suggestion of producer Manfred Eicher that double-bassist Barry Guy and Baroque violinist Maya Homburger were brought on board. Yet the most seemingly incongruous instrumental addition was that of jazz reedman John Surman, who actually ends up being the most conservative of the instrumentalists, providing a steady bass clarinet continuo and smooth saxophonic lines throughout.

For this collection of ayres and other curios, Potter and company have hand picked a fine array for our auditory pleasure. The disc’s crowning highlights come from the First Book of Songs. “Come Again” synthesizes the melodic relay between Potter and Surman with the utmost respect, as do the visceral “Now, O Now I Needs Must Part” and “Come, Heavy Sleep.” Guy delights us with his palpable lyricism in “Go Crystal Tears,” a song in which Surman also succeeds to astonishingly brilliant effect. From the Second Book of Songs, we get two polar opposites. The mournful “Flow My Tears” flows like honey from a wilting hive and makes two appearances on the album. Fine Knacks For Ladies is a more whimsical number. Potter’s quiet refrain of “the heart is true” resounds with genuine delight. The Third Book of Songs gives up two tearful ghosts of its own, of which The Lowest Trees Have Tops walks the most precarious line between laughter and lamentation. Surman’s bass clarinet infuses the title song, taken from A Pilgrimes Solace, and acts like a fulcrum of emotional balance. Potter is at his finest here, caressing every word with ceremonial urgency. Rounding out the program are three selections from Dowland’s Lachrimae, a book of pavanes based on Flow My Tears. Two of these are instrumentals that go straight for the heart, while the final track, “Lachrimae Amantis,” finds Potter slipping into countertenor on a pure and open Ah.

While perhaps not as cohesive as the project’s later albums (those with perfect pitch may stumble here and there in this darkness), In Darkness succeeds with no small humility in looking beyond Dowland’s enchanting, affected veneer and into the vivacious and melodious heart within. All in all, this is an emotionally satisfying start to an intriguing New Series project.

<< John Cage: The Seasons (ECM 1696 NS)
>> Dave Holland Quintet: Prime Directive (ECM 1698)

Michael Galasso: Scenes (ECM 1245)

| Tyran Grillo

1245Michael Galasso
Scenes

Michael Galasso violin
Recorded October 1982, Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Born in Louisiana in 1949, Michael Galasso picked up his first violin at age 3. After debuting with the New Orleans Philharmonic at 11, he went on to forge a unique and fascinating career. As a longtime collaborator of Robert Wilson, he composed incidental music for a host of renowned productions, including an award-winning 1998 staging of Strindberg’s A Dreamplay, in addition to being involved in numerous sound installations in museums worldwide. Many will have encountered him as the film scorer for Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love, and most recently for Martin Provost’s Séraphine, but far too few have heard him on his own terms, divorced from the images he describes.

For his first solo album, Galasso gives us nine numbered “Scenes,” each the facet of an unfathomable jewel. It is an album to which I often played my violin by ear, trying to gain inner sight to its deeper complexities. And indeed, beyond its charming Philip Glassean veneer heaves a pair of expansive lungs that expel far more than they take in. The album has the feeling of a home recording, multi-tracked and with minimal processing applied. Despite being meticulously composed, it is also spontaneous in feel and refreshingly non-perfectionist. Some lines don’t quite sync up, as if what we hear were just a potent coincidence. From the hauntingly enigmatic (Scenes II and VI) to the whimsical (Scene III), we are privileged to stroll through this modest gallery of sound. Scene IV stands out with its boldly syncopated lead and subtle harmonizing. Others, like Scenes VII and VIII, tremble with incidental potential, seeming to spring forth from an as yet unrealized mise-en-scène. But it is the final Scene that remains closest to my heart, for its utter simplicity draws from a groundswell of bliss. Not unlike the solo work of Paul Giger, it has a magic all its own, an uncompromising sense of direction that can never be thwarted once it holds you.

Scenes is more than a soundtrack without images. Not unlike the shadow on the cover, its chapters are disembodied. We see only their negative selves, and hear only the sounds that animate them.

<< Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition: Inflation Blues (ECM 1244)
>> Lester Bowie: All The Magic! (ECM 1246/47)

Paul Giger: Ignis (ECM New Series 1681)

| Tyran Grillo

 

Paul Giger
Ignis

Paul Giger violin, violono d’amore
Marius Ungureanu viola
Beat Schneider cello
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Tõnu Kaljuste conductor
Recorded June 1998, Niguliste Church, Tallinn
Engineer: Mado Maadik
Produced by Manfred Eicher

This recording documents a melodious piece of happenstance. Having begun on rather different planes of ECM’s mortal coil, the roving Swiss violinist and the much-in-demand Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir gradually met at the center of a most sonically revelatory circle. The resulting Ignis is a hypnotic experience that reveals new secrets with every listen. For his first label project in seven years since 1992’s Schattenwelt, Giger reworks antique motivic fragments into larger wholes. As such, they become fully formed entities looking inward through the lens of an unparalleled violinism.

Organum,for string trio, inducts us into the album’s haunting universe. Bathed in a luxurious reverb and medieval sentiment, it plunges us deep into the nexus of what’s to come. Karma Shadub, the only original composition here, finds itself resurrected from its appearance on Alpstein to superb choral effect. The EPCC touches every layer with expert care, capturing the arpeggiated flair of the earlier version with a more nuanced legato style. Giger plays like a man possessed of something beyond physical description, filling as much space as the entire choir, if not more.

The following two pieces are drawn from 10th-century Benedictine plainchant. Tropus inverts the spectrum with the violin occupying the central axis around which the other voices reveal themselves. The choir fluffs its feathers, rising from the depths with ascendant violin improvisations, adding harmonic light to an already bursting image. Alleluja is a succinct instrumental statement of utter beauty, and boasts Giger’s skills on the viola d’amore. Last is the astonishing O Ignis. Structured around the selfsame piece by Hildegard von Bingen, it can also be heard on the Hilliard Ensemble/Jan Garbarek’s Mnemosyne. Presently, it is anchored by a gently lilting ostinato in the cello that soon flowers into a supernova of musical activity, carefully controlled by the binding threads of its voices.

This is a radically different sound for Giger, who seems to reinvent himself with every new effort, and one that should provide many discoveries to come. A gray, expansive, and utterly captivating experience awaits.

<< Tomasz Stanko: From The Green Hill (ECM 1680)
>> Franz Schubert: Sonate B-Dur op. posth. D 960 (ECM 1682 NS)