Guillaume Roy-Didier Petit

Not to be confused with the organic wine from France’s Burgundy region, this two-CD musical tone poem is similarly natural and provincial. But the sense aimed for is auditory not gustatory. Featured on both discs are veteran French improvisers who have played with many national and international figures over the years, with cellist Didier Petit, notably with Michel Doneda and violist Guillaume Roy with Regis Huby.

The first CD, titled À l’est du soleil consists of eight pieces of free music during which the string players advance interpretation of pastoral visions, buttressed with appropriate literary quotations. The second, called Programmes communs, musically elucidates seven erudite readings linked to tranches of tao and tarot by Roy and Petit, and that are further expressed by adding another player to the duo. They are Michele Rabbia on drums and electronics; trombonist Christiane Bopp; Yaping Wang playing yangqin (hammered dulcimer); baritone saxophonist Daunik Lazro; clarinetist Catherine Delaunay and the voice of Kristof Hiriart.

While there’s a serenity involved with the violist and cellist’s long-time familiarity with each other’s skills that doesn’t mean as a duo there’s any slacking of invention or instant compositional transformation. As they intensify their interpretations the tracks also lengthen making room for more instrumental techniques and technical inventions. By “Et la vie’, the second track, patterns are established. Alternately each string player creates and impels the theme, either fierce or fragile while the other interjects sharpened counterpoint in the form of sandpaper-like abrasions, spiccato strings bounces or broken-chord whistles. The interface can be in complementary or widely divided tempos; then they swap roles. Here and elsewhere Petit adds mumbled chants that resemble sea shanties more than scat singing.

During more deliberate movements there are intertwined interludes that lead to slower, warmer harmonies as timbres bleed into one other a half step apart and at distinctive pitches. Divided, its the cellist whose motifs often include separated squeaks and guzheng-like plinks as well as occasionally taking the rhythm role a double bass would have in Jazz. Roy’s fiddling can be more classically formal, aiming towards expanding the horizontal realm and showcasing subtle cross pulses. But he too outlines expositions where he crams multiple tones into every line to judder and bend notes. Sometimes Easter-European melodies as well as Gallic and Jazz asides work into the interface. The final title track is the most descriptive variant of the duo’s work. Segueing from lento to allegro at the top as Roy’s multi-sequence is matched with Petit’s dedicated pulse below, a brief silence ushers in a presto variation which push the layered line further out. Interlocking arco swells and pizzicato plucks – and a human whistle – complete the narrative that by the finale quietly reflects pastoralism as well as pressure.

When it comes to the trio selections, while the textures from Wang’s hammered dulcimer create a unusual string trio, most sympathetic creativity is expressed when the two meet up with horn players. The extended trio piece featuring the dulcimer player creates a challenge for the bowed string players to adapt to his tension-induced plucks and rubs. That means a curtain of tremolo glissandi from cello tangs and viola whines concentrates each outburst into an undulating whole even as the piece become faster and more distinctive. However the concluding “Souffle commun”, which integrates Christiane Bopp’s extended portamento slides into string sweeps is more noteworthy. As she pivots from gutbucket smears to accented grace notes a lyrical rapprochement is attained. Her puffing undulations are perfectly cushioned by supple string expansions. Similar connections are made when clarinetist Catherine Delaunay (“L’arbe à parable” or baritone saxophonist Daunik Lazro (“La vie ds strates”) guest. Delaunay’s clarion flutters judder beside intersectional movement from the swelling strings resulting in a distinctive undulation that is almost weightless, In contrast “La vie ds strates” is almost Jazz-like as Lazro’s renal honks and overblowing almost fragment the exposition, but Petit’s basement cadences and Roy’s sweeping variations position the saxophonist’s output into a three-part tremolo line. Notable for anyone who followers the work of any of these French improvisers, Petit-Roy also provides an object lesson in the advances in 21st Century string playing.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD 1: À l’est du soleil: 1. Le homme qui vient 2. Et la vie 3. Insistante 4. Des bataleurs 5. Ombres 6. Joute 7. Petit Roy 8. À l’est du soleil CD 2: Programmes communs: 1. Langues comme une# 2. L’arbe à parable* 3. La position de trépied+ 4. La vie ds strates^ 5. Douceur carmin& 6. Programmes communs# 7. Souffle commun!

Personnel: Christiane Bopp (trombone)!; Catherine Delaunay (clarinet)*; Daunik Lazro (baritone saxophone)^; Guillaume Roy (viola); Didier Petit (cello and voice); Yaping Wang (yangqin)&; Michele Rabbia (drums and electronics)+; Kristof Hiriart (voice)#