Out of Genre

Bach on the sitar? Not quite what you might be expecting from this album from Jonathan Mayer. But I was won over by the three pieces here, especially ‘Sonata No 1 in G Minor’, although I suspect there were ferocious technical difficulties to overcome. Also well-judged were the experimentations with different scale forms, such as the Persian octatonic ‘String of Pearls’ and the whole-tone scale on track seven, ‘Whole’, which although they move away from the traditional modal conceptions of Indian music still seem ideally suited to the instrument in Mayer's hands.

The pieces in which he collaborates with other musicians are less exciting, especially ‘When It Rains’ featuring the jazz trumpeter Kenny Wheeler. The latter seems very much out of his element, lacking the fluent technique necessary to keep up with Mayer's dear facility on his instrument. This was less obvious with ‘String of Pearls’ which features the French flautist Bernard Wystraete, and his bass flute has a timbre that is akin to the North India bansuri (bamboo flute), making the pairing less jarring. All in all, however, this is an unusual and intriguing album that pushes at the limits of what we expect from the sitar.