Remember Me, My Dear (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) Jan Garbarek & The Hilliard Ensemble

• Komitas (1869 - 1953):
• 1 Ov zarmanali (Arr. Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble) (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 06:00
• Anonymous:
• 2 Procurans odium (Arr. Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble) (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 03:23
• Jan Garbarek (b. 1947):
• 3 Allting finns (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 04:00
• Nikolay Kedrov Sr. (1871 - 1940):
• 4 Litany (Arr. Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble) (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 09:00
• Anonymous:
• 5 Dostoino est (Arr. Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble) (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 03:16
• 6 Sanctus (Arr. Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble) (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 07:50
• Arvo Pärt (b. 1935):
• 7 Most Holy Mother of God (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 04:11
• Anonymous:
• 8 Procedentem sponsum (Arr. Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble) (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 04:17
• Guillaume Le Rouge (1385 - 1465):
• 9 Se je fayz deuil (Arr. Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble) (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 06:17
• Pérotin (1160 - 1230):
• 10 Alleluia nativitas (Arr. Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble) (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 05:09
• Hildegard von Bingen (1098 - 1179):
• 11 O ignis spiritus (Arr. Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble) (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 07:29
• Jan Garbarek:
• 12 We Are the Stars (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 05:19
• Antoine Brumel (1460 - 1512):
• 13 Agnus Dei (Arr. Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble) (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 06:10
• Anonymous:
• 14 Remember Me, My Dear (Arr. Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble) (Live in Bellinzona / 2014) 05:13
• Total Runtime 01:17:34

Info for Remember Me, My Dear (Live in Bellinzona / 2014)

25 years on from the release of Officium, the groundbreaking alliance of Jan Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble, comes Remember me, my dear, recorded during the final tour the group made in October 2014. The program is emblematic of the range of repertoire the Norwegian saxophonist and British vocal quartet explored together– from Pérotin, Hildegard von Bingen, Guillaume le Rouge, Antoine Brumel to Komitas , Arvo Pärt and more. It could be said that the Hilliard/Garbarek combination, in concert, transcended its source materials, with early music, contemporary composition and improvisation interfused in the responsive acoustics of sacred spaces. And this final album reminds us that the unique Garbarek/Hilliard combination, and its unprecedented exploration of sound, was consistently breathtaking.

Garbarek blends with the vocal lines – sung captivatingly by the Hilliards – like a fifth voice. With restraint and the greatest of control he wanders and floats through the spaces created by the singers…The early music is not just given a modern sheen. Garbarek explores a space from the inside, but with a sound whose hymnic character and pathos cannot be denied. The music raises the question of what is old and what is new. Peter Rüedi, Die Weltwoche

Named for the Scottish ballad which concludes it, Remember Me, My Dear is a live album from the unforgettable final tour of Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble, recorded in October 2014 at Chiesa della Collegiata dei Santi Pietro e Stefano in Bellinzona, in the Ticino canton of Switzerland. The album embodies all the special attributes of this unique alliance between the Norwegian saxophonist and the British vocal ensemble.

They were first brought together by producer Manfred Eicher in 1993. With Officium, the debut album made the following year, “something came into existence that was not there before”, in the words of Jan Garbarek, and the music touched a large international audience. A million copies of Officium were sold swiftly, and a thousand concerts - many in churches, abbeys and other sacred spaces - followed over a 20-year period. And there were further recordings, the double album Mnemosyne (1998) and Officium Novum (2009). The repertoire of Remember Me is drawn from all three albums and adds a new piece, “Procurans odium”, a medieval song preserved at the Bavarian monastery of Benediktbeuern. All of the music is transformed by the live context, by the subtlety of the singers, and the improvisational daring of Jan Garbarek. “He can pick up on anything, and his ears are phenomenal,” David James has said. “The slightest nuance, he’ll play into it and feed something back – it’s just so thrilling to perform with him.” Jan Garbarek, near the beginning of the association: “I’ve loved medieval music for years. The old music is very familiar to me, for it uses modes which you find in folk music and jazz. I find it completely natural to join in with it, and it has since broadened my whole perspective of playing.”

The range of music addressed expanded as the Officium project developed. Remember Me, My Dear begins with an Armenian traditional piece in Komitas’s arrangement. There is also contemporary music, including Arvo Pärt’s “Most Holy Mother of God”, and two Garbarek compositions: “We are the stars”, based upon Native American poetry, and “Allting finns”, a particularly beautiful setting of a poem by Swedish author Pär Lagerkvist. On the present recording it segues into the Litany of Russian composer Nikolai Kedrov, whose music spanned the 19th and 20th centuries, integrated here alongside 12th century music of Hildegard von Bingen, 13th century music of Pérotin, and more. In the playing of Garbarek and the singing of the Hilliards, time is dissolved in the resonant performance space.

“Hard, smooth stone surfaces and an abundance of air were the properties we sought,” wrote Jan Garbarek in a programme note. When these were available, “the concerts were bliss. Flowing so easily, the sonority of the voices hovering harmoniously under every arch and vault, filling every corner of splendent space. Sax roaming freely above, below inside the vocal texture, a soaring sum of parts…” The Bellinzona concert, two months from the final show, bears out this description.

The retirement of the Hilliard Ensemble, after a forty-year career, also brought the Officium collaboration to an end. The last Officium performance was at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, in December 2014. The outstanding recordings remain, the Officium-Mnemosyne-Officium Novum cycle now augmented by Remember Me, My Dear.

The Hilliards can also be heard on a further 40 ECM titles, singing everything from Tallis and Gesualdo to Arvo Pärt and Gavin Bryars. Jan Garbarek is of course one of ECM’s primary artists, first recording for the label in 1970 with Afric Pepperbird and subsequently appearing on dozens of albums as leader, co-leader, and featured soloist with composers including Eleni Karaindrou and Giya Kancheli.

Album booklet, in English and German, includes a performer’s note by Gordon Jones, and liner notes by Paul Griffiths and Steve Lake.

Jan Garbarek, soprano saxophone
David James, counter-tenor
Rogers Covey-Crump, tenor
Steven Harrold, tenor
Gordon Jones, baritone

The inspired bringing together of Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble has resulted in consistently inventive music making since 1993. It was the groundbreaking “Officium” album, with Garbarek’s saxophone as a free-ranging ‘fifth voice’ with the Ensemble, which gave the first indications of the musical scope and emotional power of this combination. “Mnemosyne”, 1998’s double album, took the story further, expanding the repertoire beyond ‘early music’ to embrace works both ancient and modern.

The Norwegian saxophon player, Jan Garbarek had an early breakthrough into the elite of modern jazz in the 60's, due to his extensive cooperation with Keith Jarrett. His name is listed next to the big names from the U.S. and is associated with the birth of an original european sound in jazz.


His tone is clear, indipendent, ascetic and pure. 'The north and nature, song and mystery' are what Garbarek calls his origins and these are his unrefutable heritage. If it wasn't for his strong inner connection with Norwegian folklore, he wouldn't be able to integrate Brasilian and Asiatic influences as convincingly as he does. That the origin of all music lies in song, is to be felt in many of his compositions, and his greatest attention lies on melody and on the clear articulation of melodious-lines, that he plays with unmistakable impressive urgency. 'In my best moments I hope to give meaning to every note'.

Suddenly, out of an oscillating melody, Garbarek's horn emerges, keeping its sovereignty into the highest pitches, and without giving way to uncontrollable recklessness. His unisono playing with Eberhard Weber's singing bass gives his songs a hymnal luster. The breadth of peacefulness and maturity in his music eliminates all question of stylish fashionability.

Jan Garbarek's Chambermusic-Jazz might well be the most beautiful sound next to silence, and he, as sculptor of these sounds, is intrinsingly connected with the illustrative and folkloristic qualities and influences. He is an original stylist always searching for new realms for his intense and extremely visual music.

Unrivalled for its formidable reputation in the fields of both early and new music, The Hilliard Ensemble is one of the world's finest vocal chamber groups. Its distinctive style and highly developed musicianship engage the listener as much in medieval and renaissance repertoire as in works specially written by living composers.

The group's standing as an early music ensemble dates from the 1980s with its series of successful recordings for EMI (many of which have now been re-released on Virgin) and its own mail-order record label hilliard LIVE, now available on the Coro label; but from the start it has paid equal attention to new music. The 1988 recording of Arvo Pärt's Passio began a fruitful relationship with both Pärt and the Munich-based record company ECM, and was followed by their recording of Pärt's Litany . The group has recently commissioned other composers from the Baltic States , including Veljo Tormis and Erkki-Sven Tüür, adding to a rich repertoire of new music from Gavin Bryars, Heinz Holliger, John Casken, James MacMillan, Elena Firsova and many others.

In addition to many a cappella discs, collaborations for ECM include most notably Officium and Mnemosyne with the Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek, a partnership which continues to develop and renew itself, and Morimur with the German Baroque violinist Christoph Poppen and soprano Monika Mauch. Based on the research of Prof. Helga Thoene, this is a unique interweaving of Bach's Partita in D minor for solo violin with a selection of Chorale verses crowned by the epic Ciaconna , in which instrumentalist and vocalists are united.

The group continues in its quest to forge relationships with living composers, often in an orchestral context. In 1999, they premiered Miroirs des Temps by Unsuk Chin with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Kent Nagano. In the same year, James MacMillan's Quickening, commissioned jointly by the BBC and the Philadelphia Orchestra, was premiered at the BBC Proms. With Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic, they performed the world premiere of Stephen Hartke's 3 rd Symphony and they recently collaborated with the Munich Chamber Orchestra with a new work by Erkki-Sven T üü r. In 2007 they joined forces with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra to premiere Nunc Dimittis by the Russian composer Alexander Raskatov, also recording this for ECM.

Booklet for Remember Me, My Dear (Live in Bellinzona / 2014)