“You
want this CD - trust me, I’m a musician....” was
my summing
up of the last ECM disc from Rolf Lislevand,
Nuove
musiche. As far as I’m concerned, the same is true of his
Diminuito.
It’s a funny thing, but have you noticed that, on hearing or discovering
a ‘new’ word, it will start cropping up all over the place? It’s
like the motorist who learned the word Asphalt, and then found it in front of
or following him all over the place. But enough hardcore humour: still under
the spell of Rolf Lislevand’s version of the
Arpeggiata addio I
was at a VIP gig not long after, and heard the thing played on a renaissance
harp as accompaniment to the expensive wines and hors d’oeuvres - not so
obscure after all. Having been bowled over and still remaining entranced by Lislevand’s
Nuove
musiche album I did a rare thing, and begged and pleaded our avuncular and
indefatigable editor Len for this disc. I’m a big fan of the ECM label
anyway, and have been since the early years, but I hadn’t realised they
have been going since 1969 - the ‘ECM 40 years’ stickers only now
filtering into my little corner of sunny Europe.
Diminuito is a slightly less ‘funky’ album than
Nuove musiche,
but still approaches old music as something alive and relevant to our times,
and suffers no lack of the truly groovy. Lislevand focuses here on the Italian
Renaissance, and unique musical features from this period in the 1500s. As with
some jazz musical improvisation today, diminution was/is the practice of taking
a relatively simple theme or harmonic progression, and using it as the servant
to ever more complex embellishments, shortening or diminishing the rhythmic note
values over the duration of the performance. There are plenty of parallels for
this in other ancient music sources such as Indian
raga and the like.
We Europeans later churned out frequently rather boring sets of variations as
a quasi-extension of this line, but a well executed improvisation in almost any
context will often hark back to techniques which are represented with superb
refinement on this recording.
Instead of the Rainbow Studios used for the older album,
Diminuito is
set in another ECM favorite location, the Propstei St. Gerold. This has proved
excellent for early music in a number of recordings, and the same goes for Rolf
Lislevand’s band. Judging by the relative volume of the instruments I do
have the feeling that a certain amount of balance manipulation will have gone
on, but with an excess of ‘effect’ being one of the criticisms of
Nuove
musiche, this recording does have a more natural feel, even though the ear
is clearly being given an ‘ideal’ sound picture rather than the effect
of a concert registration. I don’t mind this personally, and thoroughly
enjoy the way the delicate sonorities of all these remarkable instruments are
brought forth like the most marvellous box of toys imaginable. When introduced
the voices are float ethereally over the top and can be a bit new-agey, but this
agrees with the religious feel of a number of the pieces. When the real counterpoint
kicks in as with the final
Tourdion the singers have plenty of fun and
true equality with the instruments in a version some of whose harmonic progressions “no
serious scholar would ever approve.”
Lislevand’s central sound is still that of plucked strings - harps, lutes
and renaissance guitars, harps. As mentioned, the interpretations have the feel
of being a little closer to what we might expect from more ‘straight’ interpretations
of this music. There is a wonderful effect of sympathetic strings gently plucking
a halo of sound around the main theme of Alonso Madurra’s
Fantasia which
may stretch authentic credibility, but who cares, it’s beautiful. Percussion
is used sparingly but to great effect, the low bell-like thrumming which starts
to underpin the developing canons in this same piece further on at 2:43 becomes
a moment which the ear anticipates and relishes. This world of saintly subtlety
is also infused with some moments of superb fun. The central track,
La perra
mora or ‘Moorish Dog’ is my personal favourite in this regard
with a bass solo dropped in from ‘Blackadder’, its line followed
by the organ with a Frank Zappa-like feel for extra nuance. Other swinging dance
numbers include the lilting
Saltarello which moves, Eurovision song-like,
up a tone directly into the
Piva, whipping up plenty of frenzy by the
end. Chunky bass lines and a kickin’ organ solo later on are both features
of the
Quinta pars, elegantly set up by
Petit Jacquet. Part of
Lislevand’s success with these pieces is the way in which they are combined
and conjoined, becoming “the body of a symphonic or theatric musical form.” Lislevand’s
own booklet notes may have some idiomatic strangeness, but he clearly knows what
he’s talking about, and conveys his intention and the context of the music
very effectively. Improvisatory moments such as within the ‘12 inch’ version
of
Susanne un jour/Recercada settima grow from the musical material in
such an organic and sensitively sympathetic way that the ear and mind become
as absorbed as if you were playing your own instrument - as if the perception
of the music is that secret dimension which brings it to life, conjuring it actively
rather than consuming it passively.
Great fun and infinitely satisfying, this is a CD I would recommend to all. I
have no doubt there will be early music specialists who may turn their noses
up at some of Lislevand’s ideas, but I’d rather have spine-tinglingly
gorgeous and invigoratingly inspirational over any academic idea of what might
or might not have been done in the times this music was first put to use. I have
a sneaking feeling those composers would agree, and even if I’m wrong,
that feeling
makes this disc transcend its asking price.
Dominy Clements
Rolf Lislevand (lutes, vihuela
de mano); Linn Andrea Fuglseth, Anna Maria Friman (voice); Giovanna Pessi (triple
harp); Marco Ambrosini (nyckelharpa); Thor-Harald
Johnsen (chitarra battente, vihuela de mano, lutes); Michael Behringer (clavichord,
organ); Bjørn Kjellemyr (colascione); David Mayoral (percussion)
