François Couturier

T arkovsky Quartet ** * *

This reunites the sublime quartet of ECM's 2005 Nostalghia-Song for Tarkovsky– François Couturier (piano), Anja Lechner (cello), Jean-Marc Larché (soprano) and Jean- Louis Matinier (accordion) – with the films and life of their inspiration, the late, great Russian director. Like Tarkovsky, they seek to evoke the spiritual and find the beauty is in the quest. The music that results, despite its classical references (among them, again, Bach and Pergolesi), is neither classical nor jazz. Its uniqueness resides in the emotional richness and complexity of the quartet's responses to Tarkovsky, amplified by the limpid simplicity and restraint of performances such as A celui qui a vu l'ange, Tiapaand a gorgeous free improvisation, La main et l'oiseau, culminating in the unsettling beauty of Doktor Faustus, which references Shostakovitch and a stillborn Tarkovsky project. See url.ieaf60