Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Corcoras
Label: Celinka
Release: 2018
Duration: 49:39
Rating: 4/5
Corcoras is a string quartet whose main musical visionary and driving force is composer Marijan Dović. Cello, violins and viola! Something like the Balanescu Quartet instantly pops into your head. Funny thing, just a week after this album came out, the Balanescu Quartet played in Novo mesto, where Corcoras have been active since 2010, and where it comes to album releases, they’re barely getting started compared to the far more famous Balanescu Quartet. But what a start. In just under 50 minutes, the debut album »Got Rhythm?« shows off an exceptional musical spectrum of genre and rhythmic boundlessness. At the same time, it pulls off an incredibly bold and effective fusion of many musical elements, which, through the rhetoric of strings and the specifics of string arranging, catch a distinctive momentum in their sails.
The album’s opening section alone, the good 11-minute suite Gorjanske bajke by Marijan Dović, composed in five acts, serves up a peculiar weave of baroque, classical music and cheeky impulses drawing on the legacy of Slovenian folk melody. Even though we meet a lord of the manor and Midsummer nights, no count has fled and no castle has burned down. Still, with the string quartet playing, you can easily slip into musical »otherworlds« that the musicians create in a remarkably gentle, perfectly in-tune way, and with the lively, tender address of a harmonious interplay of building blocks in the sonic picture, you land with ease in the medieval bosom of the mystical world of the Gorjanci hills, with a glimmer of the days before the first steam locomotive.
The middle of the album deepens the quartet’s hunger for all sorts of musical adventures, loosening the boundaries between improvisation and tangible motivic structures in a sparkling, inventive and teasing way, and so keeping their dialogue wonderfully harmonious throughout. At the same time, the crew deftly finds its feet in chosen rhythmic figures. There’s a foray into tango, with a neat reworking of Astor Piazzolla’s Four, for Tango, and otherwise the middle of the album draws you in with a voyage through Dović’s own compositions, among which the breezy Pão de Açúcar is especially fun, with the band very skillfully, and in its own way, melding string arrangements with Latin rhythms (samba). The leap into the field of jazz and swing fusion (Jazzinity Minor Swing) sensibly sets up the link to the third and final part of the album, a sort of dedication to the figure and work of George Gershwin, who is a special kind of inspiration for the album’s creators. An adaptation of some of Gershwin’s works, stamped with timeless evergreen quality, for strings of course. Provocative and witty. Daring and fun. All of it written to suit Dović and his bandmates down to the ground.
A varied, hugely infectious and consistently inviting record. An ambitious work that grew and took shape slowly, over a longer stretch of time. There are plenty of finesses and extremely clever tricks for adapting string playing techniques, plus sparkling rhythmic seasoning, where you can easily miss the accompaniment of drums and percussion. »Got Rhythm?« reflects the layered musical polish and understanding of musicians who, in the distinctly teasing language of string chamber music, skillfully wheel and deal and dance around with different genres as well as rhythmic textures.
Lineup
Pija Vidmar – violin
Jera Rot – violin
Marijan Dović – viola, violin (#1)
Ana Arh – cello
Production
Danilo Ženko & Corcoras
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)
