JAN GARBAREK / THE HILLIARD ENSEMBLE - Mnemosyne (1999) 2xCD / FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble waited nearly five years before trying to follow up their surprisingly successful Officium album, but finally they came through with an even more adventurous two-CD set of jazzman-meets-early-music-voices. Here, their range straddles no less than three milleniums (just missing a fourth by a couple of years), from the "Delphic Paean" of Athenaeus circa 127 B.C. to a lullaby by the contemporary Estonian composer Veljo Tormis, with intervening contributions by Hildegard von Bingen, William Billings, and Thomas Tallis, Iroquois Indians, Basque and Peruvian folksongs, and many more far-flung choices. Most daringly, the four voices themselves now start to improvise on scraps of ancient material culled from old book bindings and the like, though it's hard to determine exactly where this occurs (probably during some passages of wordless vocalise). Ultimately, despite the freer methods, the results are often pretty much the same as Officium on disc one -- soothing, timeless sonic frescos reverberantly recorded in the same Austrian St. Gerold monastery, with Garbarek soaring over or threading through the texture ever more sparingly. Yet on disc two, Garbarek and the Hilliards start to move into other worlds, breaking into something more disturbing and even atonal in that ancient "Delphic Paean," the syncopated harmonies of Garbarek's own "Loiterando," or a strange-sounding Russian Psalm from the 16th century. This is a collaboration in transition, and one hopes it will continue to evolve. by Richard S. Ginell  
Tracklist 1 :
1    Quechua Song 7:12
Composed By – Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
Composed By [Peruvian Folksong Fragment] – Traditional
2    O Lord In Thee Is All My Trust 5:09
Composed By – Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble, Thomas Tallis
3    Estonian Lullaby 1:58
Composed By – Veljo Tormis
4    Remember Me My Dear 6:30
Composed By – Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
Composed By [16th Century Scotland] – Traditional
5    Gloria 6:03
Composed By – Guillaume Dufay
6    Fayrfax Africanus 4:05
Composed By – Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
Composed By [St Albans / Great Dunmow] – Traditional
7    Agnus Dei 8:38
Composed By – Antoine Brumel, Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
8    Novus Novus 2:18
Composed By – Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
Composed By [13th Centuy France] – Traditional
9    Se Je Fays Dueil 5:12
Composed By – Guillaume Le Rouge, Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
10    O Ignis Spiritus 10:53
Composed By – Hildegard Von Bingen, Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
Tracklist 2 :
1    Alleluia Nativitatis 5:06
Composed By – Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
Composed By [13th Century England] – Traditional
2    Delphic Paean 4:46
Composed By – Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
Composed By [127 BC] – Athenaeus
3    Strophe And Counter-Strophe 5:02
Composed By – Jan Garbarek
4    Mascarados 5:02
Composed By – Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
Composed By [Basque Folksong Fragments] – Traditional
5    Loiterando 5:33
Composed By – Jan Garbarek
6    Estonian Lullaby 2:01
Composed By – Veljo Tormis
7    Russian Psalm 3:45
Composed By – Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
Composed By [16th Century Russia] – Traditional
8    Eagle Dance 4:48
Composed By – Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
Composed By [Iroquois & Padleirmiut Fragments] – Traditional
9    When Jesus Wept 3:22
Composed By – Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble, William Billings
10    Hymn To The Sun 7:28
Composed By – Jan Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble
Composed By [2nd Century Greece] – Mesomedes
Credits:
Baritone Vocals – Gordon Jones
Countertenor Vocals – David James
Design [Cover Design] – Sascha Kleis
Ensemble – The Hilliard Ensemble
Producer – Manfred Eicher
Soprano Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone – Jan Garbarek
Tenor Vocals – John Potter, Rogers Covey-Crump
Text By [Mnemosyne Poem] – Friedrich Hölderlin
Note
"Thanks to Ingmar Bergman for many things, including these images from his film The Seventh Seal." M.E.