The River

The combination of cello and piano is one of the loveliest in music, and this is a wonderful instance of it.


A contemporary masterpiece   July 3, 2000
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There are few collaborations in the fields of improvised and neo-classical music that have created works so richly evocative as that of the Norweigan pianist Ketil Bjornstad and the American cellist David Darling. The River, the first of these collaborations, is arguably the finest, drawing upon influences as diverse as the music of the Renaissance and twentieth-century minimalism. The results are sublime; Bjornstad's introspective piano themes are delicately counterposed by Darling's meditative cello passages which haunt the listener with their searing poignancy. This is achieved both structurally and atmospherically through the use of chord progressions and performance techniques which explore the full range of both instruments in a way which emphasizes harmonic texture over virtuosity.

More abstractly, the transcendent beauty of The River is derived from the sensitivity with which the overwhelming mood of sorrow is depicted. The musical ideas are introduced through a contemplative reserve which never once lapses into sentimentality. Bjornstad and Darling are clearly two deeply thoughtful men; in this work, they epitomize the rare talent of being able to express the profundity of grief through music. A contemporary masterpiece.