It is this sense of togetherness in creating music that is seemingly timeless yet inherently free and open to fresh interpretation that make the music recorded as part of the Retracing Bartók project in Timișoara so appealing.
ECM 2824 / 651 3053
Lucian Ban (piano); Mat Maneri (viola)
Recorded October 2022
In a musical partnership that stretches back to 2009, Romanian born pianist Lucian Barn and US violist Mat Maneri, and with this their second release for ECM that musical relationship continues to deepen and explore new sonic and melodic possibilities.
If the earlier album was a somewhat impromptu affair with a dup concert being proposed by a promoter at the conclusion of a tour with the Tarkovsky Redux project, Ban and Maneri found themselves preparing a performance of original compositions by the pianist, one by the violist and the traditional ‘Nobody Knows the Troubles I’ve Seen’.
From the outset the chemistry is apparent and it appears that some of the music written by Ban was with Maneri in mind as a collaborator. The material on this latest release is markedly different, and much closer to home for the pianist than Maneri as the duo explore the folk music collected and notated by Béla Bartók, with many of the compositions having been gathered by Bartók from Transylvania where Ban grew up in a small village in the northwest of the region.
These folk songs offer limitless possibilities for the duo, and indeed they have been exploring ways to approach the material for a number of years in addition to recording the album Transylvanian Folk Songs for Sunnyside Records (2020) that featured the duo with John Surman on saxophones and bass clarinet.
With Ban and Maneri taking such a deep and scholarly interest in the music collected by the Hungarian composer breathe new life into the pieces. Classical music, jazz and improvisation are carefully introduced in the mix while taking care to preserve the origins of the songs, and yet the resulting music sounds uniquely their own.
Conjuring up a myriad of musical avenues to explore the music is delicate and heartfelt on ‘Poor Is My Heart’ and the pianist points up different paths for Maneri to follow in his remarkable playing on ‘Romanian Folk Dance’. There is great beauty to be heard in ‘Harvest Moon Ballad’ and ‘The Boyar’s Doina’ explores the relationship between the traditional Romanian doina and the blues while referencing Ellington’s ‘Fleurette Africaine’.
If the music is in a constant of flux, the duo does revisit earlier pieces with a splendid and lively rendition of ‘Transylvanian Dance’ that closed the aforementioned Transylvanian Folk Songs, with both musicians taking delight in each other’s playing and the rhythmic impetus of the composition. It is this sense of togetherness in creating music that is seemingly timeless yet inherently free and open to fresh interpretation that make the music recorded as part of the Retracing Bartók project in Timișoara so appealing.
