In this beautiful duo album by two of Italy’s most creative musicians, roles are frequently overturned, as lyrical percussion shades into electronics and texture turns to melody. Stefano Battaglia reminds us that the piano is also a percussion instrument and Michele Rabbia is sensitive to all the tonal implications of drums and cymbals. The musicians play with and without scores in material that is variously open-form, tightly-controlled, inspired by folk idioms, by liturgical music and by art installations. Battaglia allows beautiful themes to ripple through the work, and sounds are given room to blossom. Duets for piano and percussion have long represented an important zone in the work of Stefano Battaglia (in the early 1990s, he collaborated with both Tony Oxley and Pierre Favre). Since 2000, Michele Rabbia has been Battaglia’s principal percussionist, appearing on both of his previous ECM releases – “Raccolto” and “Re: Pasolini” – as an ensemble member and fellow improviser. On “Pastorale” the musicians shape the music together.
Pastorale
Stefano Battaglia, Michele Rabbia
- 1Antifona libera (a Enzo Bianchi)
06:28 - 2Metaphysical Consolations
05:59 - 3Monasterium
03:55 - 4Oracle
02:28 - 5Kursk Requiem
03:58 - 6Cantar del alma
08:05 - 7Spirits of Myths
04:50 - 8Pastorale
07:00 - 9Sundance in Balkh
05:50 - 10Tanztheater (in memory of Pina Bausch)
09:48 - 11Vessel of Magic
02:56
Consigliato da Musica Jazz
Il Giornale della musica, CD of the month
References to a past where spirituality, magic and myth intertwined abound in the titles of these 11 pieces and influences from Arabic music and Gamelan are heard alongside others from composers like Cage, Reich and Xenakis. Yet the feelings this record evokes are more profound than a mere cataloguing of musical and artistic allusions. … Its very poetic qualities are manifested in ‘Pastorale’, the hymnal ‘Antifona’ and melancholic ‘Cantar del Alma’. This is an album of quite exquisite beauty.
Duncan Heining, Jazzwise
The latest CD from the freely improvising Italian piano and percussion duo is a gently undulating soundscape of spaced notes and hovering textures. As the eleven pieces unfold, Rabbia’s tinkling glass electronics swirl like mist round Battaglia’s recisely resonant piano.
Mike Hobart, Financial Times
Pleasingly minimal, ambiently inclined duo of pianist Battaglia and percussionist Rabbia. The spare, nuanced music is as close to John Cage or Morton Feldman as it is to jazz, but despite the limited instrumentation a great variety of sound is conjured up, with Rabbia using subtle electronics to amplify and extend his kit, and Battaglia sometimes playing a prepared-piano. … This is “audible landscape” in the famous phrase of the poet Rilke, one of whose “Sonnets to Orpheus” inspired the title track.
Phil Johnson, Independent on Sunday
In einem intimen Duo mit seinem langjährigen Partner am Schlagzeug … hat er mit Pastorale ein Werk vorgelegt, das in seiner Klangvielfalt wie seiner Dynamik eine hervorstechende Referenzplatte sein könnte. … Die 11 Klangminiaturen … sind kleine Meisterwerke von unterschiedlichen Soundblöcken und in der Abfolge dabei leicht durcheinandergewirbelt. … Das Klavier ist … ein Perkussionsinstrument, wie umgekehrt die Perkussion zu einer echten Melodiestimme werden kann. Meisterlich, wie auf diesem Album alles ineinander greift!
Ulfert Goeman, Jazzpodium
Es gibt Musik, die sich zurücknimmt, sich in sich reflektiert und alles andere in ihrem Licht erschließt. Nicht zuletzt aufgrund einer auf faszinierende Weise in sich gekehrt bleibenden Klangfarben- und Texturenpracht, die Michele Rabbia seinen Perkussionsinstrumenten und deren elektronischen Manipulationsmöglichkeiten entlockt, gehört die Musik auf Pastorale zweifellos zur recht seltenen zweiten Gattung. … Wie nun Battaglia aber gemeinsam mit Rabbia neue Idiome entwickelt, die auf ungewohnten Weisen beruhen, sich mit dem Klavier zu koppeln, ist schlicht brillant und macht Pastorale zu einem Füllhorn gelungener Momente und zu einer so vielschichtigen wie wegweisenden Veröffentlichung, die lange nachhallen wird.
Alessandro Topa, Jazzthetik
Duets for piano and percussion have been part of Stefano Battaglia’s work since the early 1990s, when he collaborated with both Tony Oxley and Pierre Favre. Since 2000, countryman Michele Rabbia has been Battaglia’s principal percussionist, appearing on both of his previous ECM releases as an ensemble member and fellow improviser. One track on “Re: Pasolini” in fact - “Mimesis, divina mimesis” – was a duet for Battaglia and Rabbia, and might be viewed in retrospect as a kind of ‘trailer’ for the present project.
When they began their live duo work the primary method employed was “tabula rasa” improvisation, open free playing, or ‘letting sounds be sounds’ as John Cage used to say. Over time other approaches have been added. In guided improvisations, instrumental roles are frequently overturned, as lyrical percussion shades into electronics and texture turns to melody. Stefano Battaglia reminds us that the piano is also a percussion instrument and Michele Rabbia is sensitive to all the tonal implications of drums and cymbals.
“Tanztheater” is a suite of dances improvised in memory of choreographer Pina Bausch consisting of in Battaglia’s words, “a gigue in 3/8, a ritual dance, a gavotte and finally a long hypnotic section of “primitive” groove. It strives to be a homage to Bausch’s extraordinarily genuine expressionism and to her immortal spirit.”
A third development in Battaglia/Rabbia improvising is the incorporation of material derived from folk roots, particularly from the Mediterranean and Arab-Andalusian regions, referenced here on “Cantar del ama” and “Sundance in Balkh”.
There are also compositions with prearranged material. “Antifona” is a musical prayer, in the format of the free antiphons of antiquity. And title track Pastorale incorporates a pretty, rustic melody set, as Battagloa says “in a natural landscape”.
On the other hand, the soundscapes of “Monasterium”, “Oracolo”, “Kursk Requiem” and “Spirits of Myths” are creatively unnatural. Here the duo plays with the sounding space, expanding and contracting it with electronics. Rabbia also manipulates and transforms the sounds of the instruments: the net effect however is subtle, poetic, with transitions between acoustic and electro-acoustic modes delicately negotiated.
When they began their live duo work the primary method employed was “tabula rasa” improvisation, open free playing, or ‘letting sounds be sounds’ as John Cage used to say. Over time other approaches have been added. In guided improvisations, instrumental roles are frequently overturned, as lyrical percussion shades into electronics and texture turns to melody. Stefano Battaglia reminds us that the piano is also a percussion instrument and Michele Rabbia is sensitive to all the tonal implications of drums and cymbals.
“Tanztheater” is a suite of dances improvised in memory of choreographer Pina Bausch consisting of in Battaglia’s words, “a gigue in 3/8, a ritual dance, a gavotte and finally a long hypnotic section of “primitive” groove. It strives to be a homage to Bausch’s extraordinarily genuine expressionism and to her immortal spirit.”
A third development in Battaglia/Rabbia improvising is the incorporation of material derived from folk roots, particularly from the Mediterranean and Arab-Andalusian regions, referenced here on “Cantar del ama” and “Sundance in Balkh”.
There are also compositions with prearranged material. “Antifona” is a musical prayer, in the format of the free antiphons of antiquity. And title track Pastorale incorporates a pretty, rustic melody set, as Battagloa says “in a natural landscape”.
On the other hand, the soundscapes of “Monasterium”, “Oracolo”, “Kursk Requiem” and “Spirits of Myths” are creatively unnatural. Here the duo plays with the sounding space, expanding and contracting it with electronics. Rabbia also manipulates and transforms the sounds of the instruments: the net effect however is subtle, poetic, with transitions between acoustic and electro-acoustic modes delicately negotiated.
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