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Stefano Battaglia / Michele Rabbia

Pastorale

ECM 271 3764

Pianist Stefano Battaglia is something of an old hand at the percussion–piano freely improvising duo, having collaborated in the early 1990s with Tony Oxley and Pierre Favre, and with his current partner, fellow Italian Michele Rabbia, on an earlier ECM release, Re: Pasolini.

On these eleven pieces, which range from deft interpretations of prearranged material (the musical prayer 'Antifona Libera', the wisps of melody that inform the title-track) through Maghrebi-influenced improvisations ('Cantar del Alma', 'Sundance in Balkh') to a tribute to choreographer Pina Bausch (in four parts, described by Battaglia as 'a gigue in 3/8, a ritual dance, a gavotte and finally a long hypnotic section of "primitive" groove'), he is clearly as interested in the textural as in the melodic possibilities of his instrument, and with Rabbia deploying an extraodinary variety of percussion sounds as well as subtle electronics to complement him, this is a surprisingly wide-ranging album, dynamically varied as well as drawing, for its its inspiration, on everything from the more delicate sort of free jazz to minimalism and contemporary classical music. A thoughtful, absorbing and clearly carefully considered album.