THE ATHENAEUM CONCERT

Description

The pieces presented during the concert at the Athenaeum come from the tracks recorded by the trio on its first recording, Transylvanian Folk Songs (Sunnyside, 2020). However, the live reinterpretations of these pieces are so radical that a new songbook has been born, highlighting the extraordinary power of these historical gems. For this double album, the longtime collaborators of pianist Lucian Ban and violist Mat Maneri, as well as legendary woodwind master John Surman, delve deeper into the Transylvanian folk music collected by Béla Bartók more than a hundred years ago. Over the past five years, the trio has deepened the spirit of its music while touring, as shown by its new recordings: Cantica Profana and The Athenaeum Concert (vinyl-only version). The record includes a booklet with liner notes by Ban and Maneri, as well as archival photographs from early 20th-century Transylvania and from the Athenaeum concert. Excerpt from the informative booklet by Ban and Maneri: “Once the music went on tour, a new musical spirit manifested itself in us at every concert. By revisiting the dances, Christmas songs, dowry songs, doinas and laments first recorded in Timisoara in 2018, new perspectives opened up at every concert, new forms emerged, themes and instrumental roles were freely exchanged, a ‘thrilling life of peasant music,’ to use Bartok’s words, carrying us forward. Each musician brings a unique sound and approach to the music, from Maneri’s singular microtonal viola tones and his esoteric musical influences to Ban’s jazz leanings and archaic Romanian romanticism, and Surman’s contemporary cool and Cornish brilliance.”