Sunday Morning Sessions

Thrace is a quartet of musicians formed around classical cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, a long-serving member of Pierre Boulez's Ensemble Intercontemporain. Alongside the French cellist are Iranian percussionist brothers Bijan and Keyvan Chemirani and Cretan lyra player Sokratis Sinopoulos. None of them actually come from Thrace, the European part of Turkey bordering Bulgaria and Greece, but it's nevertheless a source of inspiration. A lot of their pieces draw on Balkan sources as well as influences from Turkey, Iran and elsewhere. Some of the music is traditional, some composed, but it is all transformed into a compelling and powerful sound, the performances either virtuoso or lyrically beautiful, such as the gorgeous cello and lyra counterpoint of ‘Nihavent Semai’. ‘Karsilama’ is a Balkan-style dance by Ross Daly. Sinopoulos and the Chemiranis have all worked with Daly and his idea of creating new modal music and new ways of playing traditional instruments has clearly been a model.

As well as pieces for the whole quartet, like the opening ‘Khamse’, there's the plangent duo ‘I Would I Were a Bird’, which intertwines the lines of the warm, resonant tone of the cello and the delicate, wiry sound of the lyra. The Chemirani brothers play a duet on tombak (goblet drum) and daf (frame drum), while there's a couple of contemporary compositions (by Lutoslawski and Jörg Widman) for solo cello, which come from a rather different world but showcase Queyras’ extraordinary technique. Strongly recommended.