Consonnances

In zither master Tri Nguyen, Vietnam has a fine ambassador for its traditional music. This recording has a clearly defined musical aim: to promote Vietnamese music by combining traditional melodies and instrumentation with Western compositions and a string quartet. Detailed liner notes explain the history and make-up of the Vietnamese zither and the story or setting behind each piece.

Nguyen's vision is skilfully and delicately realised with the help of French ensemble, the Ilios Quartet. Plucked strings and shimmering bowed passages from the quartet support the vibrating, single-note tunes and cascading runs of Nguyen's zither, brought together on a reverb-heavy, deliberately atmospheric recording. ‘Autumn Moon Lullaby’ is a good example of this music: a wind effect accompanies Nguyen's opening phrases, which are then echoed high on the cello before a melody emerges that itself then morphs into ‘Winter’ from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, and away again. The mood is gentle and contemplative but veers towards the soporific at times, not helped by little thematic variation across 13 tracks and over an hour's music. Beautiful moments abound however, such as the point half-way through the album's longest track, ‘Move with Water, Walk on Clouds’, when a beautiful quartet passage gives way to an exquisite zither solo.