Moderato Cantabile Anja Lechner & François Couturier

• 1 Sayyid Chant and Dance No. 3 - Hymn No. 7 06:42
• 2 Voyage 05:28
• 3 Chinar es 06:29
• 4 Canción y Danza VI 05:13
• 5 Musica Callada XXVIII - Impresiones Intimas I 05:59
• 6 Soleil rouge 03:37
• 7 Papillons 07:27
• 8 Hymn No. 8 - Night Procession 06:44
• 9 No. 11 - Fêtes lointaines No. 3 04:47
• 10 Impresiones Intimas VIII 'Secreto' 05:05
• Total Runtime 57:31

Info for Moderato Cantabile

After a decade of shared work in the Tarkovsky Quartet and an ongoing alliance in the Pergolesi Project (with singer Maria Pia De Vito), German cellist Anja Lechner and French pianist François Couturier unveil their new duo.

The players approach the music from different vantage points: Lechner is a classical soloist with an uncommon interest in improvisation, Couturier a jazz musician travelling ever further from jazz. On Moderato cantabile they present their own arrangements of works by three fascinating outsiders from the margins of music history – G.I. Gurdjieff, Komitas, and Federico Mompou. To differing degree their music reveals influences from the east, both in terms of relationship to folk traditions and religious music, and philosophically. A contemplative air pervades the session. The programme has connections to Anja Lechner’s acclaimed account of Gurdjieff’s music on the earlier Chants, Hymns and Dances (with Vassilis Tsabropoulos), but the new duo has its own identity, and time spent in Armenia has deepened Lechner’s understanding of the contexts from which the music emerged: her cello assumes almost a singer’s role in these pieces, exploring the strong melodies. François Couturier’s compositions function as both contrasting and complementary elements. As a player, François has a long history of working with Mompou’s music. He has been influenced, furthermore, by his association with Anouar Brahem, and the sonorities of the Middle East are part of his palette.

Moderato cantabile, a striking and unusual album, was recorded in the rich acoustics of the Lugano studio in November 2013 and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Anja Lechner, violoncello
François Couturier, piano

Anja Lechner
performs as soloist with leading orchestras, as a chamber musician, and as creative participant in diverse projects between the genres. Composers who have written music for her range from Tigran Mansurian, Valentin Silvestrov, Tõnu Kõrvits, Hooshyar Khayam, Zad Moultaka to Dino Saluzzi.

The range of her musical interests is reflected in more than twenty albums for ECM Records.

Her recent releases include Quasi Parlando, music of Tigran Mansurian, with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Mirrors, music of Tõnu Kõrvits, whose compositions she has premiered with the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Tõnu Kaljuste, and Lontano, featuring Lechner’s duo with French pianist Francois Couturier playing music of Giya Kancheli, Anouar Brahem, Ariel Ramirez beside their own music. Lechner and Couturier also collaborate in the Tarkovsky Quartet, with their third ECM album Nuit Blanche.

Lechner was a founding member of the Rosamunde Quartet, with whom she worked for 18 years until the group’s dissolution in 2009, playing on major international stages and at chamber music festivals.

Since 1998, she collaborates with Argentine bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi.

This season 2021/22, Anja Lechner is presenting old and new music for solo cello from J. S. Bach to Valentin Silvestrov, and improvising. She is touring with guitarist Pablo Márquez, playing music by Franz Schubert from their latest ECM album Die Nacht, and the duo Lechner/Couturier is presenting their new program Lontano.

Anja Lechner grew up in Neubeuern am Inn and studied with Heinrich Schiff and János Starker.

Booklet for Moderato Cantabile