Tabakova Dobrinka: Sun Triptych

Sun Triptych is the eagerly-awaited second ECM New Series album by British-Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova. The first, 2014’s String Paths, made an immediate impact, picking up a Grammy Nomination and superlative reviews, The Strad praising its “glowing tonal harmonies and grand, sweeping gestures,” while the Washington Times hailed it as an “exciting, deeply moving, original and triumphant” recording. The new album embraces a still broader expressive range, as is immediately evident from the opening Whispered Lullaby and Suite in Jazz Style, both for viola and piano, the first a yearning song, the second an imaginative chamber meditation on jazz gestures, atmospheres and textures. Spinning a Yarn, for violin and hurdy-gurdy, has a touching, archaic folk-like quality. A Fantasy Homage to Schubert, with Tabakova conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra, transfigures Schubertian melody and directs it heavenward, conjuring images of slowly turning planets. Organum Light, also for strings, draws inspiration from Gibbons and Purcell. The concluding, radiant Sun Triptych evokes the play of light on the natural world over the course of the day. The album, recorded in Berlin and Watford, was mixed in Munich, and produced by Manfred Eicher.