Meredith Monk's Songs of Ascension started life, three years ago, as a multimedia presentation. Singers, string quartet, percussion and bass clarinet, set against the video projections of Ann Hamilton, created the sort of "immersion music" for which the American composer has become celebrated.
For just over an hour, this piece
offers intense spiritual recharging to those who Monk feels are in danger of losing a sense of patience and unable to give themselves time to listen.
The concept for Songs of Ascension lies in the 15 Psalms or Songs of Ascent sung on pilgrimages to Jerusalem. However, there was also a physical inspiration - the eight-storey Sound Tower which Hamilton had designed for Steve and Nancy Oliver's Californian ranch, a popular venue for avant-garde composers and musicians.
While Monk's style could be broadly defined as minimalist, there is no lack of incident as she leads you gently and irresistibly to higher and higher planes.
A series of cluster pieces ranges from the pulsating strings of the excellent Todd Reynolds Quartet to a sobbing refrain on Southeast Asian mouth organ.
Some of the more fully scored tracks, drawing on the enthusiastic voices of Montclair State University Singers, are infectiously joyous; a Ledge Dance comes close to dance-floor plainchant.
Vocal soloists often deal out bird-like cries and urgent chattering, the template for which is revealed when Monk herself vocalises Fathom, against her own Indian harmonium.
Songs of Ascension is compulsive listening, with Manfred Eicher's gleaming production more than atoning for the absence of Ann Hamilton's visuals.
Also from ECM, a new CD of the Gurdjieff Folk Instruments Ensemble, directed by Levon Eskenian, delivers charming transcriptions of some of the many simple piano pieces written by the great humanist philosopher, Georges Gurdjieff.
On piano, this music can seem slight and salon-bound but, played on such exotic instruments as the duduk, santur, saz and oud, a cultural enrichment takes place, drawing on new resonances that a mere keyboard can only hint at.
A wistful Armenian Song is a hesitation waltz that would fit perfectly on a soundtrack for the Armenian movie that Fellini never made.
Meredith Monk: Songs of Ascension (ECM)
Stars: 5/5
The Gurdjieff Folk Instruments Ensemble (ECM, both through Ode Records)
Stars:
Verdict: "Music for enlightenment and spiritual recharging from premier European label."
