Ceremony explores the field of tension between old and new music, and between composition and improvisation, and shows the way in which phrasing, textures and colours employed in one area can impact upon another. The album introduces Maya Homburger, baroque violin specialist, to the New Series and reintroduces Barry Guy as composer and interpreter. The Swiss-born violinist and the English bassist have worked together in many different contexts over the years, but Ceremony, featuring music by Biber and Barry Guy, marks their recorded debut as a duo.
Ceremony
Maya Homburger, Barry Guy
- 1Annunciation - Praeludium of Mystery Sonata No. 1
02:41 - 2Celebration (for violin)
06:12 - 3Immeasurable sky - Four songs for baroque violin and double-bass
12:51 - 4Ceremony (for baroque violin and seven track tape)
16:35 - 5Still (for double-bass)
08:18 - 6Breathing earth (for baroque violin and double-bass)
06:39
Maya Homburger and Barry GuyCeremony
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Annunciation, Praeludium of Mystery Sonata No. 1; Barry Guy: Celebration, for violin; Immeasurable Sky, for baroque violin and double-bass; Ceremony, for baroque violins; Still, for double-bass; Breathing Earth, for baroque violin and double-bass.
Maya Homburger: baroque violin; Barry Guy: double-bass
ECM New Series 1643 CD 453 847-2
Ceremony explores the field of tension between old and new music, and between composition and improvisation, and shows the way in which phrasing, textures and colours employed in one area can impact upon another. The album introduces Maya Homburger, baroque violin specialist, to the New Series and reintroduces Barry Guy as composer and interpreter. The Swiss born violinist and the English bassist have worked together in many different contexts over the years but Ceremony marks their recorded debut as a duo.
The album opens - as Homburger/Guy concerts often do - with Biber's "Annunciation" Áand echoes of the First Mystery Sonata recur throughout the disc. Beyond the swooping beauty of the music, Guy has a particular sympathy for the 17th century Bohemian composer as an innovator in performance practise. (Biber's colourful instructions for other pieces included threading the bass strings with parchment and beating with the bow for drum effects - an episode that could easily occur in Guy's free improvising). The bassist/composer is also drawn by the way in which "dissonances slowly form out of consonance" in older music, and vice versa. Long fascinated by these changes Guy has incorporated similar transitions in his writing for the London Jazz Composers Orchestra.
Centrepiece of the new album is the mesmerizing sixteen-minute "Ceremony" composed for baroque violins and seven-track tape: Homburger plays against and above layers of her own violin sound. Guy: "I knew the sound of the baroque violin very well since I worked with the Academy of Ancient Music for many years, bu Êt had not previously composed for the instrument." During the compositional process Guy "accumulated masses of material", some of which was channelled into other pieces including the intense "distillation" for solo violin entitled "Celebration." The latter was the first piece of Guy's that Homburger performed. She describes it as "an extremely dense piece with high technical demands. I'm still discovering more and more music within the structure, new sound worlds, new possibilities."
"Immeasurable Sky", subtitled "four songs for baroque violin and double-bass" leaves space for guided improvisation. Homburger: "The violin part is more precisely notated than the bass part, But within the notation there is a lot of rhythmic freedom. We love it when violin and bass are slightly apart rhythmically. With these small shifts you can get the most wonderful dissonances - a tiny shimmer, a moiré which we love."
"Still" gives notice of Barry Guy's enormous gifts as improvisor: a virtuoso perfo Ïrmance, incor porating rapid-fire phrasing, it succeeds nonetheless in conveying a central mood of quietude, repose, stillness. Finally, there is "Breathing Earth", inspired by the last movement of the Biber Mystery Sonata with which the duo opened their programme. Homburger: "The bass improvises mainly within certain tonalities and I have great freedom too. Already at the beginning I quote freely from some of the end material....Towards the end of the piece we swap roles, as opposed to the first movement of the 'Annunciation'. I hold the pedal while Barry improvises."
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Annunciation, Praeludium of Mystery Sonata No. 1; Barry Guy: Celebration, for violin; Immeasurable Sky, for baroque violin and double-bass; Ceremony, for baroque violins; Still, for double-bass; Breathing Earth, for baroque violin and double-bass.
Maya Homburger: baroque violin; Barry Guy: double-bass
ECM New Series 1643 CD 453 847-2
Ceremony explores the field of tension between old and new music, and between composition and improvisation, and shows the way in which phrasing, textures and colours employed in one area can impact upon another. The album introduces Maya Homburger, baroque violin specialist, to the New Series and reintroduces Barry Guy as composer and interpreter. The Swiss born violinist and the English bassist have worked together in many different contexts over the years but Ceremony marks their recorded debut as a duo.
The album opens - as Homburger/Guy concerts often do - with Biber's "Annunciation" Áand echoes of the First Mystery Sonata recur throughout the disc. Beyond the swooping beauty of the music, Guy has a particular sympathy for the 17th century Bohemian composer as an innovator in performance practise. (Biber's colourful instructions for other pieces included threading the bass strings with parchment and beating with the bow for drum effects - an episode that could easily occur in Guy's free improvising). The bassist/composer is also drawn by the way in which "dissonances slowly form out of consonance" in older music, and vice versa. Long fascinated by these changes Guy has incorporated similar transitions in his writing for the London Jazz Composers Orchestra.
Centrepiece of the new album is the mesmerizing sixteen-minute "Ceremony" composed for baroque violins and seven-track tape: Homburger plays against and above layers of her own violin sound. Guy: "I knew the sound of the baroque violin very well since I worked with the Academy of Ancient Music for many years, bu Êt had not previously composed for the instrument." During the compositional process Guy "accumulated masses of material", some of which was channelled into other pieces including the intense "distillation" for solo violin entitled "Celebration." The latter was the first piece of Guy's that Homburger performed. She describes it as "an extremely dense piece with high technical demands. I'm still discovering more and more music within the structure, new sound worlds, new possibilities."
"Immeasurable Sky", subtitled "four songs for baroque violin and double-bass" leaves space for guided improvisation. Homburger: "The violin part is more precisely notated than the bass part, But within the notation there is a lot of rhythmic freedom. We love it when violin and bass are slightly apart rhythmically. With these small shifts you can get the most wonderful dissonances - a tiny shimmer, a moiré which we love."
"Still" gives notice of Barry Guy's enormous gifts as improvisor: a virtuoso perfo Ïrmance, incor porating rapid-fire phrasing, it succeeds nonetheless in conveying a central mood of quietude, repose, stillness. Finally, there is "Breathing Earth", inspired by the last movement of the Biber Mystery Sonata with which the duo opened their programme. Homburger: "The bass improvises mainly within certain tonalities and I have great freedom too. Already at the beginning I quote freely from some of the end material....Towards the end of the piece we swap roles, as opposed to the first movement of the 'Annunciation'. I hold the pedal while Barry improvises."
