Review of “what we talk” by Scott Fields and Stephan Rath, Neos 2010

History. It’s 2007, we are in Cologne, Germany, for the Triennial of Music. The program of the Triennial foresees that six experts of Renaissance music would be compared with the same number of musicians devoted to contemporary music. Piano with clavicembalo, organ with keyboards and synthesizers and so on. Obviously the guitar is placed side by side with the lute.
From these joining the musicians must create some new music that keeps in mind of the characteristics of their tools and their musical formation. For the guitar the champion called in the name of the modernity is Mister Scott Fields, American, guitarist and improviser voted to the free improvisation on the style of people like Derek Bailey or Larry Ochs and Elliott Sharp. For the lute it was called Stephan Rath.
The two musician play, have a good time, create a beautiful agreement, they enjoy themselves so much that their music is recorded by the same Fields and after a couple of year printed on cd for the Neos, record label devoted to the contemporary repertoires.
In the notes that come with the cd Fields quietly speaks of music "composed" for the Triennial, but we don’t know if these music have been printed or are available for other interpreters. I sincerely hope for it, because the musics are beautiful, very intense and almost dreamy in their melancholy and the two musicians play very well. Despite the difference about instrument and cultural background they overcome very well the difficulties and they play indeed with a beautiful and pleasant interplay. Both instruments (guitar and theorbo) can do what they want, playing the walking bass parts, the melodic parts, being dissonant.. and they exchange the roles and the competences without grazing the musical texture or without showing signs of yielding. There are 5 passages, 5 track in the cd the first four conceived as parts of a suite and the last "what we talk" gives the name to the cd and stands alone, the durations are among a minimum of almost 6 minutes to almost 23. Otherwise from other situations that see the improviser exceed with a loss of quality here the music flows serene without fatigues for the listener, the two musicians are good and they know how to weave themselves together.
Beautiful record, to listen for the one who plays in a duo or for the one who are thinking about creating together one with a liutist, in this case this cd would be a good base of departure, Scott Fields has his own website and maybe we should ask him if transcripts of these duets exist.