Trio d'Iroise & Syriab Trio: Goldberg
Solaire Records
It's well nigh impossible to listen to this audacious reimagining of Bach's Goldberg Variations without recognizing its political implications. Here we have a German-French string trio from Hannover, Germany, Trio d'Iroise, and a Syrian ensemble, Syriab Trio, uniting for a bold treatment of Bach material and doing so in a way that respects and honours the traditions associated with each. That these groups could come together, celebrate their differences, and create in harmony can't help but seem like some kind of instruction manual for the world's peoples. Such a message has never seemed more necessary when so much of it's engaging in conflict, war, and prejudice.
Not that the parties involved purposely pursued this collaboration with anything so lofty in mind. Instead, the project came about rather serendipitously when Syriab Trio members Abdalhade Deb (oud/vocals), Ibrahim Bajo (kanun), and Amjad Sukar (percussion) did a joint project with the Northern German chamber orchestra Ensemble Reflektor, which included Trio d'Iroise's Johann Caspar Wedell. After conversations between the cellist and Syriab Trio prompted a desire to work together, the trios' first joint rehearsal in spring 2018 proved eye-opening in presenting each half with illuminating aspects of the other's musical vocabularies. Wedell, Sophie Pantzier (violin), and Francois Lefevre (viola) then produced a string trio version of the Goldberg Variations as a basis for subsequent explorations. As the Western trio learned about Maqams and quarter tones, the Eastern one familiarized itself with score reading, polyphonic writing, and counting rests.
Many a discussion centred on determining how far from the original the music should go and what kinds of rhythms might be woven into Bach's music. The recording, which took place in November 2022, begins with the string trio hewing closely to the original work and the Syriab members joining gradually, Deb's oud the first addition, and improvisation emerging too. The music gravitates in the Easterly direction until a true synthesis is achieved. Much like the twists and turns Bach's original takes in the variations, the trios' collective journey—at eighty-plus minutes, an extensive one—is unpredictable and full of surprises, perhaps never more so than when Deb's stirring voice appears on five of the thirty-two tracks.
Highlights are plentiful, from Trio d'Iroise's sweetly lyrical rendering of the “Air” to the radiant first variation, eloquent second, and pizzicato-only fourth. With Sukar's percussion added to the rambunctious fifth, the work begins to move away from its Western origins and enter uncharted territory. By the time the ninth arrives, all six players are involved and the cross-cultural dialogue fully enacted. Add in a lovely violin-and-oud duet (variation thirteen), an elegiac, strings-only lament (twenty-five), a haunting “Mawal | Maqam Hijaz” and mournful “Mawal | Maqam Nahawand” (both featuring Deb's singing), and you've got a consistently arresting result.
In this ever-changing presentation, there are times when Bach's source material retreats from view and others where it's at the forefront, and the pendulum swings back and forth between the two sides throughout. The musical results are fascinating and show once again how amenable Bach's work is to innovative new approaches. Much like Riley's equally malleable In C, the Goldberg Variations allows for a seemingly unlimited number of interpretations and arrangements. A photograph in the sixteen-page booklet says much in showing the arrangement of the musicians performing together: rather than each trio positioned separately, the six players are interspersed. Surely there's an important lesson to be learned when European Baroque music and Arabic traditional music can come together so splendidly.December 2023