Search - Christian Wallumrod :: Sofienberg Variations

A moving journey

Philippe Vandenbroeck | HEVERLEE, BELGIUM | 12/22/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Christian Wallumrod seems to be a quintessential ECM artist: no frills, down to earth, self-effacing, yet deeply committed, profoundly original. There is a radical earthiness and simplicity in this music. Textures are sparse. It sounds like a "musica povera", endulging in the unadorned timbres of simple, folksy instruments: harmonium, fiddle, trumpet, improvised percussion. Often they play solo, or in pairs. There's not an awful lot of musical material. It tends to turn up again in the guise of variations. But every note counts. The music teeters, virtuosically, on the edge between the composed and the improvised. Hence it never annoys. Melodically and texturally it's a strange amalgam of folk, jazz, baroque and avant garde music; It sounds very European, perhaps more Central-European than Scandinavian. There are flashes of Kurtag, Mahler, Bach. The ambiente is mostly serious, hardly ever exuberant. Tempos are slow to very slow. The music vacillates between the deeply contemplative, the melancholy, and even the outright funereal. Sometimes, only sometimes, it's mildly tongue in cheek. Despite its apparent simplicity, the music evokes a vast sense of space. It seems we are on an endless journey, under a very big sky. A Winterreise."