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Spinning Forth

The title of this CD is suggestive of the music yet to come. The album draws together several threads implicit in Marais' purpose and their Swedish roots. At the core remains the Viol de Gamba music of the French baroque, but also newly commissioned Australian compositions - spinning forth in new directions.

Jenny Eriksson can’t remember how many times she received this advice in the years after she gave up her career as a promising cellist and sold her two cellos to fund overseas’ studies on the viola da gamba. Discarding all logical guidance, she caught a plane to Holland and stepped “into the abyss” to create a future for herself on an instrument few music lovers in her home country had heard of and ever fewer seemed to like.

In the decades since, and illustrated in the release of her sixth CD, Spinning Forth, Eriksson has proven her well-meaning advisors wrong time and time again.

Spinning Forth, recorded with her bespoke ensemble, The Marais Project, has at its heart the key elements of Eriksson’s success: deep immersion in the core French baroque repertoire for the viola da gamba, attention to artistic detail and a willingness to embrace the new in world first recordings of a major new work by Paul Cutlan and commissioned settings of Swedish and Australian folk songs by, respectively, lutenist Tommie Andersson and long -term collaborators, Llew and Mara Kiek. However, one of the most moving tracks on the CD is a sophisticated re-imagining by Eriksson herself of a work by Marin Marais she titled Tombeau for John Dowland. She originally wrote the piece to honour the 450th anniversary of the birth of lutenist John Dowland.

Composing a tombeau, which literally means “grave” or “shrine” in French, is a uniquely gallic way of recognising the death of a friends using the language of music. “Couperin wrote tombeaus, as did Marin Marais and even Ravel” says Eriksson, “The mournful sound of the gamba is well-suited to turning our attention to death! Someone once described the viola da gamba to me as a ‘depressed cello!’” Bach of course used the viola da gamba to great effect at important moments in both the St John and St Matthew Passions and Telemann and Handel also wrote beautifully for the instrument.

Where did the CD name come from? “Spinning Forth is the title Paul Cutlan gave to the piece he wrote for me”, Eriksson relates. “He was drawing on the baroque idea of fortspinnung, where each musical phrase seems to effortlessly evolve into the notes that come after it, just spinning forth.” “In a way spinning forth is also a metaphor for my musical career. I energise myself by finding ways of moving from where I currently am artistically to somewhere new and challenging. I love blending the new and old.”

Eriksson never stands still. After the launch of Spinning Forth on December 17 at The Independent, North Sydney, her next recording will be an Australian first CD of original music for the electric viola da gamba with an all-star band of jazz musicians she has assembled. “That’s another story”, says Jenny, “And more evidence that you can make a living playing the viola da gamba in Australia!”

Artist

The Marais Project

If you love interesting, out of the way music and relaxed, concert settings you will love The Marais Project! Jennifer Eriksson originally founded the group in 2000 to perform the complete works of Marin Marais an 18th century genius of my instrument, the viola da gamba. Over the years our repertoire has greatly expanded and now includes a huge range of wonderful vocal and instrumental music for the viola da gamba from the 1300s to the present day. They also commission and arrange new music for the ensemble.


Press quotes

“Only two pieces on this enthralling album are genuinely "baroque", but the Marais Project's central instrument, Jennifer Eriksson's viola da gamba, is a machine for imbuing all it touches with that stately grace of the music of 300 years ago. Sumptuously recorded, its bass notes are as sonorous as the voice of a great baritone; the high ones diaphanous. The baroque component consists of Erkisson's arrangement of Marais' desolately sad Tombeau pour Marias le Cadet and a suite by Marais' pupil Louis de Caix d'Hervelois that defines elegance. Tommie Andersson (theorbo, guitar) has arranged a plangent tune by the Swedish folk fiddler Hjort Anders Olsson, featuring Mikaela Oberg's baroque flute. Paul Cutlan's quixotic title track is a suite for viola da gamba and harpsichord (Raymond Harvey) that improbably manages to carry echoes of Bach while also being overtly modernist in the two instruments' capricious interaction. Finally, Lew and Mara Kiek playfully fuse the English folk tune The Cheshire Rounds with a Bulgarian 11/8 rhythm as a prelude to the bush ballad The Streets of Forbes (sung by tenor Koen van Stade), proving that Eriksson's instrument can glide through space as well as time.”

— John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald

“A mix of baroque, arranged baroque, contemporary, and an item uncovered in the early 20th Century, but probably of distant origin. The opening, Pieces de viole, is a relaxing work even in its more sprightly movements and it is most delightfully presented. Spinning Forth, was composed by Paul Cutlan (b 1964). It is for gamba and harpsichord and is well situated on the disc, surrounded by baroque flavours. It is a co-operation of ideas - a little each of baroque, classical, contemporary and a hint of jazz.”

— Neville Olliffe, Early Music News

“The Marais Project’s new CD Spinning Forth is a gorgeous collection of music which showcases the viola da gamba and its ensemble partners, through dedicated pieces written during its golden age in the 17th century and through its second coming in the 20th century, championed in Australia by viola da gamba player and founding artistic director of the ensemble, Jennifer Eriksson. Eriksson has created an ensemble that performs this thoughtful programme with brilliant musicianship. It is an intimate recording, rich in detail – detail that can sometimes be lost in the sound of a larger ensemble or concert hall. Spinning Forth unites music from across the centuries, continents, styles and hemispheres, illustrating the charm of early music, and demonstrating that old instruments can remain relevant as they make new music.”

— Shamistha de Soysa, SoundsLikeSydney

Track Listing

    Pièces de viole, Premier Livre, Suite in D minor Louis de Caix d'Hervelois

  1. Prelude
  2. l'Henriette legerement
  3. La Villageois
  4. La Bagatelle
  5. La Luthée
  6. Gigue
  7. Menuet
  8. Min levnads afton Hjort Anders Olsson

    9. Spinning Forth Paul Cutlan

  9. I Prelude
  10. II With Rustic Energy
  11. III Slow and Sustained
  12. IV Quasi Gigue
  13. Tombeau for John Dowland Marin Marais

    14. The Streets of Forbes Llew Kiek Mara Kiek

  14. The Cheshire Rounds
  15. The Streets of Forbes

Performers

Composers

Paul Cutlan

Paul Cutlan's work as a multi-instrumentalist and composer is informed by many styles, including contemporary classical music, world music and jazz. His work as a composer is an increasingly significant extension of his main work as a performer and improviser.

Marin Marais

Marin Marais (1656-1728) was a French composer and viol player. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for six months. In 1676 he was hired as a musician to the royal court of Versailles and was moderately successful there, being appointed in 1679 as ordinaire de la chambre du roy pour la viole, a title he kept until 1725.


Where to buy

Spinning Forth is available for download from the iTunes Music Store.
It's available for streaming through Spotify and Apple Music.

Spinning Forth is available as as CD. It can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre which both offer secure online ordering.

Move CDs can be ordered through music retailers across Australia including Readings.

Product details

List price
$25.00 AUD
Release date
October 2017
Copyright
© 2017 The Marais Project
Phonogram
℗ 2017 Move Records
Category
Classical
Catalogue number
MCD 564
Alternate catalogue number
MCD564
Barcode
EAN 9314574056426