Label: Celinka
Release year: 2018
Production: Denis Ženko & Corcoras
Album length: 49.39 min
Genre: Chamber Music
Corcoras is a string quartet whose main musical visionary and driving engine is the composer Marijan Dović. Cello, violins and viola! Something like the Balanescu Quartet pops into your head instantly. Funny enough, just a week after this album came out, the latter played in Novo mesto, where Corcoras have been active since 2010, though when it comes to album releases, compared to the far more famous Balanescu Quartet, they’re barely at the start. And what a start it is. In just under 50 minutes, their debut album »Got Rhythm?« shows off an exceptional musical spectrum of genre and rhythmic boundlessness. At the same time, it blends a wide range of musical elements with incredible boldness and effectiveness, and through the rhetoric of the strings and the specifics of string arranging, it fills its expressive sails with a rather unique momentum.
The album’s opening section, the good 11-minute suite Gorjanske bajke by Marijan Dović, built from five acts, already serves up a peculiar weave of baroque, classical music and playful impulses drawing on the legacy of the traditional melos of Slovenian folk music. Even though we meet a lord of the manor and Midsummer nights, no count fled and no castle burned down. But as the string quartet plays, you can easily glide off into musical »otherworlds« that the musicians create with great reconciliatory warmth and in tight harmony with each other, and with the sprightly, gentle address of a harmonious interplay of building blocks in the sonic picture, you easily land in the medieval bosom of the mystical world of the Gorjanci hills, with a reflection from the days before the first steam locomotive.
The middle part of the album deepens the quartet’s appetite for diverse musical adventures, where in a sparkling, inventive and teasing way they loosen the boundaries between musical improvisation and tangible motivic structures, thus creating a constant, deeply conciliatory dialogue between them. At the same time, the crew deftly finds its footing in selected rhythmic figures. There’s a shot at tango, with a nifty reworking of Astor Piazzolla’s Four, for Tango, but otherwise the album’s middle section sails through Dović’s own creations, among which the light-footed Pão de Açúcar is particularly fun, where the band, in its own way, very skillfully sets about merging string arrangements with Latin rhythms (samba). The leap into the fusion of jazz and swing (Jazzinity Minor Swing) sensibly sets up the link to the third and final part of the album, a kind of dedication to the figure and work of George Gershwin, who is a special source of inspiration for the album’s creators. An adaptation of some of Gershwin’s works, bearing the stamp of timeless evergreen quality, for strings, of course. Challenging and witty. Bold and fun. Written entirely to measure for Dović and the colleagues on the team.
A lively record, hugely infectious and pleasantly inviting throughout. An ambitious work that grew and took shape slowly, over a longer period of time. There are plenty of finesses and extremely skillful tricks in adapting string playing techniques, and sparkling rhythmic seasonings where you can easily miss the accompaniment of drums and percussion. »Got Rhythm?« reflects the layered musical polish and sharp instincts of musicians who, in the distinctly stimulating language of string chamber music, deftly trade and wheel and deal across different genres as well as rhythmic textures.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 8.5 / 10
Tracklist:
Marijan Dović: Gorjanske bajke / Tales from the Gorjanci Hills (suita za godalni kvartet / suite for string quartet):
1. Cvetnik (impresija) / The Flower Garden (An Impression) (0:52)
2. Graščak / The Lord of the Manor (1:58)
3. Kresna noč / Midsummer Night (3:31)
4. Jutro na gori / A Morning on the Mountain (1:22)
5. Lov / A Hunt (3:58)
6. Marijan Dović: Goin’ On (3:41)
7. Astor Piazzolla: Four, for Tango (4:27)
8. Marijan Dović: Recordación (Tango) (intro Ana Arh) (7:21)
9. Marijan Dović: Pão de Açúcar (Samba) (3:40)
10. Marijan Dović: Jazzinty Minor Swing (4:53)
11. George Gershwin: An American in Paris: Suite (arr. Alexander Graf) (3:44)
12. George Gershwin: An American in Paris: Blues (arr. Marijan Dović) (2:44)
13. George Gershwin: I Got Rhythm (arr. Ernst-Thilo Kalke, Marijan Dović) (3:10)
14. George Gershwin: Lullaby (4:13)
Musicians:
Pija Vidmar – violin
Jera Rot – violin
Marijan Dović – viola, violin (#1)
Ana Arh – cello
