Pastorale ECM ***

Although a couple of them use prepared material, these reflective duets by Battaglia (piano/prepared piano) and Rabbia (percussion/electronics) are essentially spontaneous creations. Proceeding from the sacred to the profane and mixing both along the way, the sacred elements are strongest in the first five ( Antifona Libera, Metaphysical Consolations, Monasterium, Oracle, Kursk Requiem). From the songlike Cantar del Alma, with the piano like a soul's melancholy search for truth, the gradual shift grows markedly more profane, through a minatory, almost pagan Spirits of Myths, the folklike Pastoraleand Sundance in Balkh, to a mini-suite, Tanztheater, which honours the great choreographer Pina Bausch. And while the duo's intimate dialogue often produces music of spacious beauty, it is producer Manfred Eicher's programming that gives it a post-hoc order that works.

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