The eye – it cannot choose but see;
William Wordsworth, ‘Expostulation and Reply’
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where’er they be,
Against or with our will.
Certain artists put out records as regularly and comfortingly as clockwork. And in that regard, midwived by a supportive, quality, label, so to the annual Michael Wollny listen. Always a pleasure, never a burden. This is a live highly cerebral album by the pianist who is a world class operator in duo with French saxophonist Émile Parisien. Frankly in places it is even quite moving in its solemnity and gathered nocturnalism.
The occasion here was an appearance at a festival last year called the Bodensee named after Lake Constance that borders Germany, Switzerland and Austria. There’s something gloomily inspirational about a lake, any lake, loch or lough, just being even in the vicinity smelling the air that inspires even the least romantic, huh: let alone those who cling to that name and know how to turn the quixotic currents they observe into rhapsodic flow.
I’m thinking the English lakes inspired Wordsworth for instance in his poem ‘Expostulation and Reply’ (Lyrical Ballads, 1798): “The eye – it cannot choose but see;/We cannot bid the ear be still;/Our bodies feel, where’er they be,/Against or with our will”.
Being still listening to the highly charged flow and unglossily captured recordinig of Wollny live is certainly difficult. While a modernist he has a Romantic soul however you define that especially when you hear him play a foundational Romantic like Schubert on MW’s own incredible re-imagining of ‘Der Wanderer‘ in years gone by.
Most of the tracks are – given the tendency for live albums to go on for ever – relatively concise. That’s apart from the whopper ‘Fatigue’ which is almost the same length as the previous three and requires patience.
It’s not quite as tabula rasa as the Bandcamp notes suggest given that while “free sounding” this is not spontaneous composition. That’s because there is source material sometimes covered on other recordings by Wollny such as a welcome new treatment of ‘She Moves Through the Fair’ the traditional Irish melody first collected in the early 20th century that Wollny has aready in a trio version on the marvellous Ghosts recorded. Close your eyes and think. Doing this Parisien on soprano is an able surrogate for the tin whistle or voice that might in highly charged trad Irish contexts take on the emotion found in the stirring melody.
You get the spikiness of ‘Space Cake’ which is appealing (Wollny recorded it in duo in an even better version with saxist Heinz Sauer on Melancholia released more than 20 years ago). And also present is the deep introspection of ‘Fatigue’ where Parisien’s soprano lament is striking in its repose and feeling. ‘Missing A Page’ I liked for the kind of vibe that Keith Jarrrett and Dewey Redman often cultivated together.
But best of all is ‘Vienna Pitch’ a Wollny tune that the Schweinfurt born 48 year old had already recorded with the great Ornettian Joachim Kühn on their Château Palmer series album Duo issued a couple of years ago.
“Freiheit” means “freedom” or “liberty” and it is massively in its favour that this duo album is representative faithfully of that desire that lies in all our hearts couched in these formal quasi classical dressings rendered so passionately and painstakingly.