Cantica Profana by Lucian Ban / John Surman / Mat Maneri

24 bit / 48k

There is a spirit that passes through all the folkloric music of the world. The sounds may differ from region to region and from people to people, but folk music holds deep truths that speak to the connective tissue of humanity. There is something mysteriously universal in the way peasants or, for that matter, jazz musicians approach music.

For this double release, long time collaborators pianist Lucian Ban and violist Mat Maneri alongside legendary woodwind master John Surman further explore the folk music of Transylvania collected by Béla Bartók more than a hundred years ago. For the past five years the trio has deepened the spirit of their music while touring, as can be heard on their new recordings, Cantica Profana and The Athenaeum Concert (vinyl LP only).

From Ban and Maneri’s informative liner notes: “Once we took the music on the road an unfolding of a new musical spirit was happening to us with each concert. Revisiting the dances, carols, dowry songs, doinas and lamentations first recorded in Timisoara in 2018 with each live performance new vistas would open, new forms would spring, themes and instrumental roles would be freely interchanged, a ‘pulsing life of peasant-music,’ to use Bartok’s own words, carrying us forward.”

Extensive touring allowed the trio to really explore their repertoire. The pieces began to expand and evolve. Surman observed, “Sometimes using small fragments of material and developing those fragments whilst trying to retain the spirit of the original material.” Each performance allowed the trio to approach each song in a new and original manner, whether it was dropping the theme entirely or just mixing in subtle hints of the melodies or harmonies to lead the group into new territories. The trio had matured to become a seemingly living musical organism, dancing to their own contemporary folkloric sounds.

To find such a dedicated collaborator in Surman has been a blessing for Maneri and Ban: “He has an uncanny way of playing these historic melodies in his own language, while never giving up the recipe that made them so durable in the first place. His wondrous range of instruments and sonorities wove a wonderful sense of orchestration that allowed us to enhance our own extended techniques and rhythmic altercations.”

Each musician brings a unique sound and approach to the music, from Maneri’s singular microtonal viola tones and esoteric musical influences to Ban’s jazz leanings and archaic Romanian romanticism to Surman’s contemporary cool and Cornish shine.

The material presented on Cantica Profana and The Athenaeum Concert stem from the pieces the trio recorded on their initial recording, Transylvanian Folk Songs (Sunnyside, 2020), yet the live reinterpretations of the pieces are so radical that a new songbook was born underlining the extraordinary power contained in these historical gems and the profound originality of an ensemble working night after night in unbound creativity.

Cantica Profana compiles recordings from three different concerts, all captured from November 2022 to November 2023, in remarkable clarity from tremendous sounding spaces, including the Centre Culturel Opderchmelz in Dudelange, Luxembourg, Stanser Musiktage in Stans, Switzerland, and Strasbourg Jazzdor Festival in France. The June 2024 concert at the fabulous Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest was so singularly rewarding in its sound quality and performance that the trio decided to release it as a stand-alone vinyl LP release, entitled The Athenaeum Concert.

“Violin Sing” appears twice on Cantica Profana and once on Athenaeum Concert. Ban plays inside the piano, muting the strings with a strong rhythmic purpose, sounding like a cimbalom or the West African ngoni, providing the perfect drive for Surman’s soprano and Maneri’s viola dance against one another. “Bitter Love Song” is radically reborn as “Evening in the Village” (a nod to Bartók’s famed composition) and “Cantica Profana.” The latter’s opening of percussive piano notes ringing introduces the melody by Maneri, who uses microtones that have been integral to the Blues, Arabic melodies, and Japanese traditional music, not to mention Greek doina and Sephardic dance music introduced to Maneri by his father, the late master, Joe Maneri.

“Carol” is transformed into the somberly cinematic “Dark Forest” using techniques from contemporary classical and chamber jazz improvisation. The two versions of “Up There” feature Surman’s unmistakable bass clarinet, one of the wonders of modern jazz. The LP version is particularly soaring in the stunning acoustics of the Romanian Athenaeum. On “A Messenger Was Born,” Ban leads with a patient, somber piano solo, building with the addition of Maneri and Surman who carry the melody to a solemn whisper.

“The Return” has two tremendous versions: “First Return” featuring a solemn refrain in a sort of row and “Last Return” showcasing the subtle dynamics of restrained group interplay, reminiscent of Surman’s collaborations with Paul Bley and Paul Motian, both heroes of Ban and Maneri. “Transylvanian Dance” concludes the program with a lilt and flair, conjuring peasants dancing as the spirit of the music escalates until its dramatic finale.

Folk music is a container of a communal culture. Through Ban, Maneri, and Surman’s improvisations on these folk songs, all can partake in the beauty and mystery of this culture long after the Transylvanian peasants sang into Bartók’s Edison phonograph. Cantica Profana and The Athenaeum Concert provide ample proof of the trio’s limitless creative drive and strikingly illustrate Bartók’s foretelling 1921 observation: “A future generation might conceivably discover and embody in their art music properties of the peasant music which have altogether escaped us.”

The CD and LP contain a booklet with liner notes by Ban and Maneri, along with archival photographs from early 20th century Transylvania and from the Athenaeum Concert.