Florian ROSS (b. 1972)
Architexture: Music for Jazz Quartet and Wind Ensemble (2019)
Florian Ross (piano), Sebastian Gille (soprano and tenor saxophones), David Helm (bass), Fabian Arends (drums)
Event Wind Ensemble/Susanne Blumenthal
rec. June-July 2019, Kammermusiksaal, Deutschlandfunk, Cologne
NAXOS 8.574066 [56:10]
This review might just as readily have been submitted to MusicWeb’s jazz pages. Ross’s musical origins were in jazz. Indeed, in the years when Naxos had its own jazz label they issued three recordings by Ross, including his Suite for Soprano Sax and String Orchestra (Naxos Jazz 86037, 1998), featuring American saxophonist David Liebman as the chief soloist. Like that earlier Suite (on which a group called the Event String Ensemble played), Archictexture is in the vein of what has been called, in a term invented by Gunther Schuller, ‘Third Stream’ music. Music, that is, which seeks to combine elements of Western Classical music with the methods and improvisation of jazz. Jazz afficionados will know what I mean if I refer, as examples, to musicians such as George Russell, Pete Rugolo and Friedrich Gulda or some of the work of John Lewis and the Modern Jazz Quartet (such as Fontessa, Third Stream Music, Three Windows and Blues on Bach).
Architexture is a suite of 12 pieces, all composed (or in one case, arranged) by German keyboard player Florian Ross. Most of the pieces celebrate a specific building or an architect Ross admires. So, for example, ‘Maya’ is in honour of the American architect Maya Lin, while ‘Antoni’ is a tribute to the work of Antoni
The anonymous text on the back of this disc begins thus: “Described as a ‘musical explorer’, Florian Ross effortlessly spans the realms of improvised and composed jazz…”. No source is given for the phrase in quotation marks, and I am not sure what precisely is meant by it – surely all composers and performers of real worth have minds which explore the possibilities of music? What the phrase might mean, in the specific context of this disc by Florian Ross, is that his compositions make use of a number of different musical idioms, beyond the classical and jazz idioms . So, for example, the closing piece, ‘Oscar’, which is dedicated to Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012), uses a melody “transcribed from two repentistas from Curitiba who ‘battle’ through an improvised song simply accompanied by pandeiros.” Repentistas are popular ‘poets’ who improvise texts and melodies, often competitively; a pandeiro is a kind of hand frame drum much used in Brazil. Taking this transcribed melody ross has, he tells us, “arranged it a modernistic Niemeyerish-way, thinking of Brasilia.” The creation of Brasilia, in which Niemeyer was a central figure, was one of the great achievements of modern architecture, in terms both of the sophistication of many of its individual buildings and its bold, yet elegant layout. ‘Oscar; is full of attractively intriguing rhythms and the strong improvised solo (on soprano saxophone) by Sebastian Gille is, interestingly, accompanied by a vocal ‘commentary’ from the other musicians – much as a performance by a pandeiro might be accompanied by interjections from his audience. Still, much as I like this piece. I have to say that, for me, it evokes the streets of ‘old’ Brazil, more than the handsome concrete structures of Brasilia.
Throughout Architexture Florian Ross’s writing for the wind ensemble is impressive. It is particularly effective on ‘Maya’, where alto flute, flute and clarinet are handled very sensitively in dialogue with the tenor saxophone of Sebastian Gille, and in ‘Brinkwells Cottage’: an affectionate and respectful (but inventive) arrangement of ‘Nimrod’ from the Enigma Variations, one of the English pieces which Ross, as he writes, finds to be a “very effective and beautiful combination of late-Romantic harmony without the gravity of German composers of the time”. Though ‘Brinkwells Cottage’ has a definite jazz ‘tinge’, it is certainly not a piece one would immediately or instinctively classify as ‘jazz’.
On the whole, saxophonist Sebastian Gille gets more solo space than the leader/composer Ross gives himself. For the most part Ross limits himself to intros, codas and astute accompaniment – though there are a few passages, such as one for piano, bass and drums in ‘Antoni’ which show how inventive a pianist Ross can be – a passage in which he seems to capture the very spirit of Gaudí’s idiosyncratic version of Catalan Modernism, as seen in buildings such as Casa Batiló or Casa Calvet. Ross’s keyboard work on ‘Glebe Cottage’ clearly honours John Taylor, his “teacher … trusted friend and … huge musical influence”, without being merely derivative.
There are also pieces in which Ross’s music responds, not to the work of an individual architect or a specific building but to something much broader. The best example of this is ‘Development Three’, which the composer glosses as “inspired by the floor plans of cathedrals and churches” (It is, I think, relevant to remember that Cologne – with its magnificent cathedral – was Florian Ross’s hometown). The booklet note Ross provides for this piece is worth quoting in full:
“The correlation between music and architecture is especially present when I look at floor plans – to me they look like music scores. While music becomes three-dimensional when it is performed, architecture becomes alive when the buildings rise up from their floor plans. In the special case of cathedrals the often used cross shape [Cologne Cathedral is built in the form of a Latin Cross. GP] inspired the form of Development Three. The plan – and the piece – begins at the main entrance, looking towards the benches set out for the parishioners. Later, the space widens for the transept and often the secondary access on the sides. A new area then contracts to the original width, past the communion table and the lateral nave, then continues towards the altar, the cross and, in some way, eternity.”
I won’t pretend that when I first listened to Architexture, before reading the accompanying booklet, I heard all that in ‘Development Three’. But the strong patterns of the musical structure were clear and Ross’s notes add further illumination, making real sense alongside the music. The closing passage, beautiful and hushed, in which the tenor saxophone of Sebastian Gille is accompanied by just the double bass of David Helm makes a perfect conclusion to this piece.
Another Christian building is celebrated in ‘Development Four’ – the pilgrimage church of Wieskirche, near Steingarden in Bavaria, built around 1750 by two brothers, Johann Baptist and Domenikus Zimmermann. I have only seen the church in photographs in books and through an image search on the internet, but it is unmistakably clear that it is a masterpiece of German rococo architecture and (in particular) decoration. Looking up the church in one book on my shelves (Barbara Borngässer, Achim Bednorz and Rolf Toman, Baroque and Rococo, Berlin, 2003), I find it described thus (p.128): “Built on a more or less elliptical ground plan, the church displays the sensuous nature of the rococo style better than any other: architecture, stucco, sculpture and painting merge to forma weightless, seemingly celestial whole”. Ross’s ‘Development Four’ has both the intricacy of detail that the church appears (from photographs) to possess and also, in the skillful use of instrumental colour and silence, a kind of musical airiness that may well correspond to what Barbara Borngässer identifies as a “weightless” quality. In his booklet note on the piece, Ross says that on one of many visits to the church, his “six-year-old daughter asked “… is this the place where Jesus lives?”.
While I wouldn’t want to claim that Architexture is an absolute masterpiece. I have found it to be full of subtle music which is always interesting and often beautiful. This is music which has a clear purpose and which very largely fulfills that purpose. It offers a fascinating exploration (one might say embodiment) of the intriguing relationship between architecture and music. Each time I have listened to Architexture I have heard new things and realised more and more just how well the rich detail of this music is handled by Florian Ross and his fellow musicians and with what delicacy and clarity of mind the composed and the improvised have been integrated.
Glyn Pursglove
Track list
Álvaro [4:29]
Richard [6:25]
Maya [6:00)]
Antoni [5:18]
Development One [4:01]
Glebe Cottage [4:06]
Development Two [2:33]
Development Three [4:30]
Daniel [5:22]
Development Four [2:45]
Brinkwells Cottage [5:38]
(Edward ELGAR’s ‘Nimrod’, arr. Ross
Oscar [4:27]
