Its title comes from a mystical poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, the liner booklet is full of pictures from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, and the musical performances are a surreal blend of old and new, the known and unknown. As one of my grad school professors used to say, “There’s probably a dissertation in here somewhere.” A kind of follow-up to the 1994 Hilliard Ensemble/Jan Garbarek collaboration titled Officium, this second project is an even more adventurous excursion into the outer limits of a musical universe where ancient and modern reside and freely intermingle. Venturing farther from the printed page, the four male voices (countertenor, two tenors, and baritone) and saxophonist Garbarek begin several pieces with only musical fragments and an agreed outline. The rest is improvisation, but within well-understood stylistic guidelines. Often, the vocalists perform a set piece–a Tallis hymn, a “Gloria” by Dufay, a chant by Hildegard–above which Garbarek freely improvises. The material here is far more varied than on Officium, and includes Peruvian, Basque, and Iroquois song fragments, an Estonian lullaby by Veljo Tormis, ancient Greek melody, and even a William Billings tune. Although this phenomenal music-making is offered to the public, the performances’ strength lies in their extraordinary intimacy, achieved in the remote privacy of a European monastery.
