..:: audio-music dot info ::..


Main Page    The Desert Island    Copyright Notice
 Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz


Jan Garbarek: Mnemosyne

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: ECM Records
Released: 1999
Time:
 58:02 / 46:56
Category: Jazz
Producer(s): Manfred Eicher
Rating: ********.. (8/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.ecmrecords.com
Appears with: Keith Jarrett, Eberhard Weber
Purchase date: 1999
Price in €: 28,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


Disc 1
[1] Quechua Song (Peruvian Folksong) - 7:10
[2] O Lord in Thee Is All My Trust (Tallis) - 5:09
[3] Estonian Lullaby (Tormis) - 1:58
[4] Remember Me My Dear (16th Century Scotland) - 6:30
[5] Gloria (Dufay) - 6:03
[6] Fayrfax Africanus (Great Dunmow, St Albans) - 4:05
[7] Agnus Dei (Brumel) - 8:38
[8] Novus Novus (13th Century France) - 2:18
[9] Se Je Fayz Dueil (leRouge) - 5:12

Disc 2
[1] O Ignis Spiritus (vonBingen) - 10:55
[2] Alleluia Nativitatis (13th Century England) - 5:04
[3] Delphic Paean (Athenaeus) - 4:46
[4] Strophe and Counter-Strophe (J.Garbarek) - 5:02
[5] Mascarades (Basque Folksong) - 5:02
[6] Loiterando (J.Garbarek) - 5:33
[7] Estonian Lullaby (Tormis) - 2:01
[8] Russian Psalm (16th Century Russia) - 3:45
[9] Eagle Dance (Iroquois, Padleirmiut) - 4:48
[10] When Jesus Wept (Billings) - 3:22
[11] Hymn to the Sun (Mesomedes) - 7:30
 

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Jan Garbarek - Tenor & Soprano Saxophones

The Hilliard Ensemble:
David James - Counter Tenor
Rogers Covey-Crump - Tenor
John Potter - Tenor, Liner Notes
Gordon Jones - Baritone

Peter Laenger - Engineer
Martine Passelaigue - Translation
Sascha Kleis - Cover Design

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s

1999 CD ECM 21700



Gesänge von Dufay, Hildegard von Bingen, Tallis, Tormis, Brumel, le Rouge, Athenaeus, Billings & anonmymen Meistern.Mit Improvisationen von Jan Garbarek zu den Chorsätzen. Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble



Five years after the recording of "Officium", the Hilliard Ensemble and Jan Garbarek returned to the monastery of St Gerold to renew, in the words of singer John Potter, their "encounter with the unknown." The resultant, very beautiful, double-album, "Mnemosyne", is wider in scope than its predecessor, and the improvised component of the music is expanded. Repertoire now spans 22 centuries, from the "Delphic Paean" of Athenaeus to the "Estonian Lullaby" of Veljo Tormis, via folk song fragments from North and South America and Spain, freely developed, as well as pieces by Tallis, Dufay, Brumel, Hildegard von Bingen, Jan Garbarek, a Russian psalm, a Scottish ballad of the 16th century, and much more. "We did it for each other in the absence of an audience, and these are complete one-off performances which will never sound the same again."

from ECM Homepage



ECM's guru Manfred Eicher had the brilliant idea to bring together Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble, an early music vocal quartet. The magical combination of medieval song and soaring improvisation made OFFICIUM (1994) -- the recording made at their first meeting -- an unexpected success. On MNEMOSYNE the musicians go even further. The Hilliards now draw on two millennia's worth of music, including a second-century Greek hymn, an Iroquois "Eagle Dance," and one of Garbarek's own compositions. Many of the pieces are so fragmentary that the singers must also improvise their parts. With 20 tracks filling up two CDs, the program is amazingly varied, yet the effect is totally unified. MNEMOSYNE is also more daring than its predecessor, with a few effective excursions into dissonance. Those who want the kind of ethereal, meditative experience OFFICIUM offered will certainly find it here, but MNEMOSYNE's greater emotional range is even more involving and satisfying.

Andrew Farach-Colton - Barnes & Noble



"Mnemosyne" ist fürwahr ein Klangabenteuer, das die Genres sprengt und die Sinne weitet."

M. Inhoffen in stereoplay 5/99



Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble waited nearly five years before trying to follow up their surprisingly successful Officium album, but finally they came through with an even more adventurous two-CD set of jazzman-meets-early-music-voices. Here, their range straddles no less than three milleniums (just missing a fourth by a couple of years), from the "Delphic Paean" of Athenaeus circa 127 B.C. to a lullaby by the contemporary Estonian composer Veljo Tormis, with intervening contributions by Hildegard von Bingen, William Billings and Thomas Tallis, Iroquois Indians, Basque and Peruvian folksongs, and many more far-flung choices. Most daringly, the four voices themselves now start to improvise on scraps of ancient material culled from old book bindings and the like, though it's hard to determine exactly where this occurs (probably during some passages of wordless vocalise). Ultimately, despite the freer methods, the results are often pretty much the same as Officium on Disc One - soothing, timeless sonic frescos reverberantly recorded in the same Austrian St. Gerold monastery, with Garbarek soaring over or threading through the texture ever more sparingly. Yet on Disc Two, Garbarek and the Hilliards start to move into other worlds, breaking into something more disturbing and even atonal in that ancient "Delphic Paean, " the syncopated harmonies of Garbarek's own "Loiterando, " or a strange-sounding Russian Psalm from the 16th century. This is a collaboration in transition, and one hopes it will continue to evolve.

Richard S. Ginell, All-Music Guide



MNEMOSYNE * Jan Gabarek (sax); Hilliard Ens * ECM NEW 1700/01 (2 CDs: 105:02)

About five years ago the Hilliards collaborated with progressive-jazz saxophonist Jan Gabarek in Officium, a collection of early-music pieces blended with instrumental improvisation. Now Mnemosyne comes down the pike as a sequel. The notes state that what makes this effort different is that there is more improvisation involved on all levels, that more fragmentary and ephemeral sources are used, and that the stylistic range is broadened.

As far as these goals go, this collection is a success. The performances sound extremely natural and effortless: In most places, it's hard to imagine that the Hilliards--countertenor David James, tenors Rogers Covey-Crump and John Potter, and baritone Gordon Jones--are improvising (it's a bit easier with Gabarek, as the saxophone's sound bears an innate "code" that makes us expect improvisation). Gabarek's tone is pure and focused, and he changes creative strategies sensitively from one piece to another.

Yet I find the collection, despite all these obvious virtues, vaguely dissatisfying. Inevitably there's a whiff of New Age throughout--a medieval work , then a Native American chant, then an Estonian folk-song. I'm all in favor of pluralism, but one weird consequence of the collaboration is that the sound of Gabarek's saxophone in balance with the vocal ensemble (as opposed to his specific musical ideas for individual pieces) tends to make most of the works sound a lot more similar than their provenances indicate. (And incidentally, very little information is given concerning the music--no texts, no dates of composers, no identification of sources. All we get is, for example, "Agnus Dei/Antoine Brumel" or "Novus Novus/13th century French"--the reason I have not listed the usually complete headnote of pieces here.) While perhaps a point is being made about universality, more seems lost with the differences being ironed out.

The most successful cuts are of two sorts. In one case, the sources are so fragmentary or open (as in the second-century Greek Hymn to the Sun or the melodic line of Hildegard von Bingen's O Ignis Spiritus) that Gabarek and the Hilliards use them as a base to create something quite new and often wild. The other instance is when Gabarek uses his saxophone as an equal line in more contrapuntal works, and moves the music in unusual harmonic directions, largely through modal inflection. In each case something emerges that is more than the sum of the parts. Gabarek's own compositions, Strophe and Counter-Strophe and Loiterando, are pleasingly concise, a sort of lightly swinging neomedievalism somewhere between Pärt and Orff.

But just as often the saxophone sounds like an intruder, no matter how sensitively Gabarek plays (and I want to emphasize, having admired his work on other ECM albums, in particular Kieth Jarrett's Luminessence--yes, that's the correct spelling--that Gabarek is a wonderful musician). The effect becomes that of a vocal backup ensemble, providing a harmonic bed upon which the instrumental soloist can improvise. In works by Tallis and Guillaume de Rouge, Gabarek's bluesy or neo-Iberian licks are just distracting.

This is a well-intentioned enterprise, and I'm no foe of experimentation or hybridization, especially when it's done tastefully, and this collection is done with taste and style. But it also does not reveal new beauties for me in most of the material. I remain a great fan of all concerned, but the rare piece on the set where the Hilliards perform solo (most notably a Dufay mass movement) just emphasizes how satisfying they already are by themselves. In particular, I'd like to reiterate my enthusiasm for the three-disc Hilliard Songbook on ECM 453 259-2, which features a stunning collection of new works written with early-music forms, texts, and techniques. It may sound condescending, but I feel that the set currently under review is probably best suited for an audience that is suspicious of classical or early music (or even jazz, for that matter), and needs some coaxing into its beauties. As such, this probably is not of great interest to many Fanfare readers, but I also suspect it would be a great gift for that New Age friend whom you'd really like to wean from less nourishing stuff.

Robert Carl, Fanfare
 

 L y r i c s


Instrumental Album!

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


Currently no Samples available!