Sofienberg Variations

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Maybe I'm not looking or listening hard enough but I can't help thinking that the term 'world music' is too often solely associated with sun drenched dance rhythms and 'interesting' shirts, leaving no room for the true range of this planet's musical diversity to be fully explored.

A visiting alien could be forgiven for thinking that the musical world outside of the European and American Unions only extended as far as Latin America and Africa. There are so many more flavours to experience than just these and the pianist Christian Wallumrød Ensemble's mix of Scandanavian jazz and folk and contemporary classical music is a great example of this 'other world' music that we so rarely hear or hear anything about.

Although haunting and strange, these are beautiful compositions, performances and recordings and Sofienberg Variations is a wonderful CD, the best I have heard so far this year.

Having received his musical education at the Trondheim Conservatory, Wallumrød gigged in various jazz ensembles, touring the whole of Scandanavia and Germany before forming his own trio (piano, trumpet and percussion) that released its debut international release No Birch on the ECM label in 1998. In between work for other groups in Norway, he recorded this collection of new pieces with a new ensemble in Sofienberg Church in Oslo. In this larger group strings are added with Nils Økland playing the violin and the Hardanger fiddle, the national instrument of Norway and a kind of cross between a sitar and a violin.

The unique drone sounds that are created by the sympathetic strings lying underneath the bowed strings of this instrument are just some of the elements on this recording that transport you immediately to the place of its origin, near the northern tip of Europe.

Wallumrød has observed that "the musical affinity both ways is so close that co-operation between jazz and contemporary musicians is a natural consequence" and that can be heard clearly in his compositions. The expressionist colours of the Russian composer Schnitke and the harmonic and formal style of the American jazz pianist Chick Corea are the closest I can come to comparisons.

All of the pieces here are by Wallumrød apart from Psalm, an arrangement by the ensemble of the traditional Norwegian folk song "O du min Emmanuel" (Oh you, my Emmanuel). This rendition opens with a beautiful Hardanger solo before the rest of the ensemble fill out the texture and pass the song's melody between one another as trumpeter Arve Henriksen's tone moves seamlessly from soft breathy flutes to piercing horn.

The depth and range of sounds that this ensemble produces and is then able to vary so subtly or dramatically at will is astonishing for a group of only four players. As usual for ECM the quality of the recording is superb and the acoustic of Sofienberg church fleetingly catches and holds the sounds in a warm glow.

The collection opens with Sarabande Nouvelle. In this modern take on the centuries old courtly dance funeral march meets tango. It is a brash opening, the ensemble joined by Trygve Seim's tenor sax, in which a falling melody line is repeated over and over again but the energy soon dissipates and the piece almost withers away. This tune returns again in the middle and near the end of the CD in two variations.

In Memor, a melancholy theme initially begun and accompanied on the piano is heard in many different harmonic permutations and becomes more urgent and searching as the music progresses before we are left hanging in mid air amongst a soft, fading clattering of cymbals. Edith begins with drama but ends with sweet resolution having scaled a peak of rare emotional intensity and it is the highlight of the collection. Both of these pieces are heard as shorter variations near the end of the CD. Alas Alert is more harmonically astringent and the instrumental sounds more individual than integrated - wailing trumpet, grating strings and bright piano chords accompany the rattling and rolling of brushed snare drum and cymbals.

Along side the variations and a couple of single pieces there are four Small Pictures - brief glimpses of music, less elaborately explored but no less rewarding then the others. The programming of this CD is as inspired as the music - our journey comes full circle with variations of Edith, Memor and the Sarabande before the epilogue of Losing Temple closes the collection.

This is a riveting and often very tense music but with moments of utterly lucid sweetness. It's an emotionally draining fifty three and a half minutes but, rewarding and enriching, that's time I'll happily spend again and again.