Balanescu Quartet: as dark as the past at times

In the world sinking deeper in the ‘fake-factory’ dross there are jewels alongside the highway to hell you only have to extend your hand to grab it. Why so few search for novelty is something as puzzling as Marmite… Unless it is utter kitsch. American R&B stars, however mediocre, are manipulated to the top of the charts, while domestic soulsters strive to survive.

Second-rate ‘punk’ bands from the USA are embraced like saviours of humanity while the local outfits are shunned as unwanted diet. International divas are far outstripping the home stars who appear to only manage a supporting cast. Jazz and experimental music have become an anathema due to people’s re-development of tribal-minds and corresponding taste.

Thus, those who are about to deviate, we salute you. Balanescu Quartet’s ‘Maria T’ is an album about one of the secrets Romanians have kept to themselves for a very long time. Maria Tanase (1913-1963) is a national treasure Alexander Balanescu is introducing us to here.

But, the word has started to leak out earlier with glowing review of her recordings [in Songlines, the World music magazine], Nigel Kennedy enthused about her and performed some of her songs, she was featured on Desert Island Disc programme… We now have a whole album based on her work.

Ms Tanase is at the roots of Balanescu’s childhood, one of his earliest influences; she was a glamorous, iconic singer and actress, hailed as Romania’s Edith Piaf, one of “greatest voices of the last century,” Alex said during the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, show at the beginning of February. [Listen to ‘Wine’s So Good’ for a taste of her legacy.]

This collection of songs is not making “transcriptions or arrangements of the ethnic material,” Alex explains in the PR release, “but through my own particular musical perspective (with its classical, jazz, electronic and generally very eclectic influences) to develop a new personal language, always remaining true to the spirit of the original source material.”

These dozen pieces - ‘Spotdance’ is hypnotically minimalistic, ‘Life And Death’ is as dark as a shepherd’s night, ‘Aria’ is as airy as a bright Springtime day, ‘Lullaby’ is as ominous and ponderous as a philosophy textbook - are strange, evoking, dreamy and captivating. Its setting is pastoral and purely melodic, yearning and traditional, bitter-sweetness dripping like honeyed melancholia, a tad mysterious, a bit spooky… ‘Maria T’ is conceived as a multi-media project, making the album just a part of it. It still sounds good, different and fresh.

A Euro-kind of World music-cum-classical compositions of the likes you’ve not heard before. What more would you want - England winning the World Cup?! Well, destiny leads to where time ends.

8/10