Ecm 1285

Norwegian Hardanger fiddle specialist Nils Okland has a broad range of musical interests, as illustrated by his eclectic discography. His solo album Monograph (ECM, 2011) spotlighted his lyrical, folkloric side; Lysøen—Hommage à Ole Bull (ECM, 2011) with keyboardist Sigbjorn Apeland payed tribute to the Norwegian classical tradition; Lumen Drones (ECM, 2014) found him making trance music with two rock musicians; and the recent Felt Like Old Folk (Smeraldina-Rima, 2016) collaboration with the Belgian duo Linus was almost completely improvised. He was also a member of Thomas Stronen's "Time is a Blind Guide" band, although he does not appear on the recording.

Stefano Battaglia Trio - In The Morning - Music of Alec Wilder (2015) {ECM 2429}
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© 2015 ECM Records | ECM 2429 | 4738673
Jazz / Post Bop / Modern Jazz / Modern Creative / Piano Trio

On his sixth album for ECM the Italian pianist and his trio reflect on the work of American composer Alec Wilder (1907 – 1980). “I first came into a more direct contact with Alec Wilder’s music in the early 90s, when I was performing his Sonata for Oboe and Piano and his Sonata for Horn and Piano”, Battaglia remembers. “I had already known some of his popular songs like ‘While We’re Young’, Blackberry Winter’ and ‘Moon and Sand’ through the intense versions Keith Jarrett has recorded. But after working on Wilder’s chamber music I wanted to develop a deeper connection with his intriguing musical universe, and I've discovered an immense hidden treasure.”

Tord Gustavsen Quartet - Extended Circle (2014) {ECM}
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© 2014 ECM Records | ECM 2358
Jazz / Modern Creative / Post Bop / Piano

The sixth ECM album from Tord Gustavsen, recorded in Oslo in June 2013, quietly but most assuredly takes the Norwegian pianist’s music to the next stage of its development. Gustvasen’s quartet with Tore Brunborg, Mats Eilertsen and long-term associate Jarle Vespestad has matured into a group whose interactions draw strength from restraint, patiently building the music toward its climaxes. Here are new gospel-tinged pieces and ballads from Tord’s pen, gentle and luminescent group improvisations, and an ecstatic interpretation of the Norwegian traditional “Eg Veit I Himmerik Ei Borg” (“I Know A Castle In Heaven”).

Box set in ECM’s acclaimed Old & New Masters series reintroduces Arild Andersen’s first three leader dates for the label – Clouds In My Head, Shimri, and Green Shading Into Blue. Recorded between 1975 and 1978, none of these albums has previously been issued on compact disc, and this edition is eagerly awaited. The music traces Andersen’s personal evolution from ‘free’-inclined bassist to bandleader-composer and introduces some players who would prove important for the future of the music – amongst them an 18-year-old Jon Balke on the “Clouds” session.

Misha Alperin - Her First Dance (2008) {ECM 1995 171 6742}
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© 2008 ECM Records | ECM 1995 / 171 6742
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Classical / Chamber Music / Modern Creative

After a decade-long absence, Russian pianist-composer Misha Alperin returns to ECM with his most fragrant release to date. He retains cellist Anja Lechner from the last session, Night, and rejoins his longtime ally, horn player Arkady Shilkloper. The deeper (if only for being the oldest) relationship of the two is with Shilkloper, who since 1990’s Wave Of Sorrow has been a constant companion throughout Alperin’s ECM tenure. In fact, the only piece not by Alperin on this album, “The Russian Song,” flows from Shilkloper’s pen in a lovingly arpeggiated duet for French horn and cello, with no piano between them. The remaining pieces comprise a mixed palette of solos, duos, and one trio. The latter, “Tiflis,” again features French horn, only now working a mournful charge between cells of piano and cello. It’s a stunning, lyrical voyage that works its subtle ways into the mind.

Gideon Lewensohn - Odradek (2002) {ECM New Series 1781}
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© 2002 ECM Records | ECM New Series 1781
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Chamber Music

The ECM New Series debut of Israeli composer Gideon Lewensohn, 'Odradek' is comprised entirely of premiere recordings. Lewensohn is increasingly recognised as one of the freshest voices in contemporary music and the title piece from this album, the 'Odradek Quartet' won First Prize in the International Competition of the Italian Academy of Arts and Letters. Lewensohn's music defies easy categorisation. It is by turns, playful, serious, ironic, caustic, beautiful. The composer defines his own role as that of a commentator on culture - sometimes from a specifically Jewish perspective - and the range of musical-historical references in the work is vast. In his compositions, Lewnsohn pays tribute to Kurtág, Kancheli, Lutoslawski, Shostakovich, Bartók, Mahler, Rochberg, the Hilliard Ensemble, ragtime composer Scott Joplin and many others.

Frances-Marie Uitti & Paul Griffiths - There Is Still Time (2004) {ECM New Series 1882}
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© 2004 ECM Records | ECM New Serie 1882
Classical / Jazz / Avant-Garde / Sound Art / Spoken Words / Cello

The combination of spoken words and musical improvisations may bring up associations with the Beat poets and some of their free jazz experiments, but that is far from the effect Paul Griffiths and Frances-Marie Uitti achieve in There Is Still Time, their 2004 release in ECM's New Series. These scenes for speaking voice and cello have a bleak existential quality that moves them into a different direction and are perhaps more like the spare monologs of Samuel Beckett than anything else. Griffiths' haltingly paced recitations of his austere, introspective texts is by turns fragile, morose, excited, and agonized – not exactly a theatrical performance, but certainly dramatic in its intensity and haunting in its suggestiveness.

William Byrd - Motets And Mass For Four Voices (1994) {ECM New Series 1512}
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© 1994 ECM Records | ECM New Series 1512
Classical / Renaissance / Choral

William Byrd (1543-1623) has been called the greatest English composer, an arbiter of the sublime and master of his craft. And while discerning early music listeners have a fair number of recordings to choose from in order to put any stake into this claim, this offering from ECM is as sensitive an introduction as any into all things Byrd.

Juliane Banse & András Schiff - Songs of Debussy and Mozart (2003) {ECM New Series 1772}
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© 2003 ECM Records | ECM New Series 1772
Classical / Chamber Music / Piano / Soprano

First recorded collaboration between one of the leading sopranos of our time, Juliane Banse, and the incomparable pianist András Schiff. The programme is a fascinating combination of two different worlds of 'Liedgesang' - in language as well as musical style and historicity.

John Potter - Secret History - Josquin / Victoria (2017) {ECM New Series 2119}
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© 2017 ECM Records | ECM New Series 2119 | 4811463
Classical / Medieval / Vocal Music / Chamber Music

Tomas Luis de Victoria and Josquin Desprez were not contemporaries, they lived and worked in different countries, and perhaps shared little in terms of abstract compositional style. Yet throughout Europe, generations of musicians recognized them as kindred spirits, and tablature versions of their masses and motets circulated amongst lutenists. For John Potter, this is “the secret life of the music – in historical terms its real life.” In this characteristically creative project Potter - joined by Trio Mediaeval singer Anna Maria Friman and three outstanding vihuela players - explores “what happens to music after it is composed.”