Officium

Mnemosyne / Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble It's been six years since these same performers got together to create one of the decade's more unusual experiments in musical alchemy. Beginning with the raw materials of early music and modern jazz, the four male voices of the Hilliard Ensemble joined with jazz saxophonist Jan ...	In Praise of Dreams Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek cut his teeth emulating John Coltrane and blowing gales through the muscular compositions of George Russell and open improvisations of Keith Jarrett. But since the mid 1980s, the saxophonist has been making an increasingly rarefied and composed ...	Witchi-Tai-To This 1974 session by the Garbarek-Bobo Stenson quartet is an important chapter in the rise of the ECM style, a shift toward a more spacious, deliberated music. Although the tunes are drawn from mostly American jazz sources and the influence of the John Coltrane quartet looms larg...	I Took Up the Runes There's a stately splendor in much of this 1990 recording, whether it's infused with a broadening calm or a welling tension as Garbarek synthesizes his disparate inspirations into frequently compelling music. Mari Boine Persen, a Lapp singer, contributed the first tune, an evocat...	Twelve Moons This 1992 recording by the Garbarek Group has their customary blend of Norwegian folk themes and original compositions, with the leader's big-toned soprano and tenor saxophones at the heart of a music that combines cool lyricism and intense, if restrained, passion. It's the emoti...
Magico	Ragas and Sagas	Rites Listeners who discovered Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek through Officium, his million-selling 1994 collaboration with the Hilliard Ensemble, aren't likely to be disappointed in this double disc. They might, however, be in for a surprise. Ambitiously traversing territory from ...	Legend of the Seven Dreams There's mystery and looming drama throughout this 1988 recording, as Garbarek combines his saxophones and flute with his highly developed studio art. There's a piquancy to the long opening track, with Garbarek's lilting soprano first paraphrasing a traditional Lapp song before de...	The Köln Concert A musical chameleon, pianist Keith Jarrett was at his finest when he recorded these sustained solo improvisations in a German concert hall in 1975, the first lasting 26 minutes, the second 40. Melodies and rhythmic figures arise fluidly from his fingers as he moves from one idea ...

Timeless
I came across this album while walking through the halls of the MET in Midtown. I walked home that night with the CD, I was 16 years or so. Now at 30, I still listen to this album regularly, and now put my kids to sleep with this album as part of a nightly mix of Officium, Tim Janis, and Thomas Otten...

Generally beautiful, but rather homogenous and limited in its possibilities
While working on a film in Iceland, ECM label head Manfred Eicher was listening to a mix of medieval European vocal music and the contemporary jazz of Jan Garbarek. In September 1993, Eicher brought together the Hilliard Ensemble and Jan Garbarek in a German monastery for a fresh new crossover concept. As the Hilliard Ensemble performed 14 early vocal pieces, ranging from the most ancient chants to the more elaborate settings of Perotin and Dufay, Jan Garbarek improvised on soprano and tenor saxophones. The resulting music is generally quite beautiful, with the saxophone giving more variety of timbre but the music of the vocal ensemble keeps everything rooted in (pre-)tonality. The interaction of the vocalists and the saxophone nowhere seems forced. Certainly audiences of the time were in need of such contemplative music--witness the success in the following year of the Chant album. The problem with the album, however, is that like most crossover efforts the music eventually comes to see limited in its possibilities. Instead of a 77-minute CD, which comes to be exhausting, half as much material would have the same impact. Those intrigued by the concept--and certainly fans of Jan Garbarek's work--may find it worthwhile. But all in all it is a fairly minor item in my collection, and I'm baffled that Eicher thought it necessary to continue this line of crossover with the Mnemosyne album.

I Wish I Could be More Positive...
...but I really hate the soprano sax played over these beautiful pieces. The singing is superb and the repertoire is rare (only one other recording of the Morales, for instance, and that is done quite differently, anent the sax). I think I would have liked it better if Garbarak had played a lower horn, like an alto or tenor sax. These pieces are about something, and I don't feel that Gabarak really knew what the texts were about and what the composers were responding to in the texts. I keep it for the exquisite "Parce mihi Domine" sung withoug the screeching sax.

Perfect for "Old Souls"
I'll never forget hearing this music for the first time, in 1993 or 1994 at a sampling station at Borders. I have to admit I was intrigued by the cover photograph likely taken at a cemetery, of a spider web-draped angel statute. That was when CDs were still new, and my first thought was "This is the perfect sound for CDs: clear, quiet, ethereal." I bought the handsome 2-CD package then and there, and my interest in this unique musical project has gradually matured in the past decade. Most recently, following a significant family death in 2002, I've started a personal tradition of spending New Year's Eve alone at home, with only candles burning after 7:00 p.m., listing to recordings of great requiems (Mozart, Durufle, Rutter and Verdi) and The Hilliard Ensemble's Officium (translated to sense of duty, respect, service and allegiance). Spending the last day of the year this way is comforting, and allows me to continue to grieve appropriately. Officium transports me to another place and time, quasi-religious, celestial, meditative. The solo saxophone calls out as if speaking, questioning, affirming. It's not for everyone. This recording will never climb the charts, especially in today's shallow world of noise and self-importance. I would say if you're an "old soul," try listening to this gift of creativity and inspiration. It just might become one of the most valuable recordings you own - as it has for me ...

Mixed feelings about mixed genres
Although I enjoy listening to these recordings for their serenity and sense of magical wonder, I tend to sympathise with some of the less glowing reviewers. My favourite passages are, without a shadow of a doubt, those in which the eminent Mr Garbarek's sax is 'tacit' or, at least, 'pianissimo'. Indeed, from time to time I struggle with an impulse to shout out: "Oh shut up, Jan, and let me listen to those wonderful singers!" That said, the voices and the sax do sometimes synergise, though I get the distinct impression that Mr Garbarek was simply overdubbing an existing recording by the Hilliard Ensemble: he seems to be reacting to them, but not vice versa. And with more rehearsal, his notes might have been more appropriate. FINAL VERDICT: an interesting oddity, not an unmitigated success.