Nuit blanche François Couturier & Tarkovsky Quartet

• 1 Rêve 02:54
• 2 Nuit blanche 05:38
• 3 Rêve II 01:22
• 4 Soleil sous la pluie 04:41
• 5 Dream III 02:05
• 6 Fantasia 04:26
• 7 Dream IV 02:28
• 8 Urga 11:19
• 9 Daydream 02:52
• 10 Cum dederit delectis suis somnum 05:46
• 11 Nightdream 02:23
• 12 Vertigo 00:57
• 13 Traum V 01:31
• 14 Traum VI 02:25
• 15 Dakus 04:34
• 16 Quant ien congneu a ma pensee 05:05
• 17 Rêve étrange... 01:20
• Total Runtime 01:01:46

Info for Nuit blanche

Ingmar Bergman once said of Andrey Tarkovsky, He moves with such naturalness in the room of dreams, and the French-German quartet named after the great Russian filmmaker has developed an associative dream-language of its own. For leader and pianist François Couturier the silence and slowness of Tarkovsky are closely related to an ECM aesthetic further developed on the group s third album Nuit blanche, produced by Manfred Eicher in Lugano in April 2016. Here pieces variously composed by François Couturier, or created in the moment by Couturier, cellist Anja Lecher, saxophonist Jean-Marc Larché and accordionist Jean-Louis Matinier, explore the texture of dreams and memory and continue to make oblique reference to Tarkovsky. Couturier's Dakus, for instance, acknowledges a debt to Toru Takemitsu s 1987 composition Nostalghia, written in memory of the director. The quartet also incorporates a crepuscular interpretation of Vivaldi's Cum dederit delectis suis somnum from the Nisi Dominus, alluding to a composer Tarkovsky was listening to at the time of Stalker. Whether playing improvised chamber music, modern composition or baroque music, the creative originality of the Tarkovsky Quartet shines through.

François Couturier, piano
Anja Lechner, violincello
Jean-Marc Larché, soprano saxophone
Jean-Louis Matinier, accordion

Tarkovsky Quartet
Following on from the ECM recordings “Nostalghia – Song for Tarkovsky” (2006), the solo piano album “Un jour si blanc” (2009), and “Tarkovsky Quartet” (2011), François Couturier continues to compose music of compelling beauty for his original Tarkovsky Quartet. He continues to draw inspiration from films, but has now expanded his frame of reference.

This time, delving into and reflecting the aspect and dimension of the ‘dreamlike’ in works of cinema (the eerie phenomenon of uncertain distinction between real and imaginary, or what André Breton might call a sort of ‘surréalité’), Couturier refers to masterworks by filmmakers such as Akira Kurosawa, Luchino Visconti, Ingmar Bergman, ... and, of course, revered Andrey Tarkovsky.

François Couturier has absorbed and brilliantly set to music the poetic abundance of extraordinary scenes and chimeric characters of that particular film universe. It is once again new original chamber music with its unmistakably own and unique sound texture: very distinct, distinguished, emotionally profound compositions, enriched by compelling, creative collective improvisations.

“Mixing classical rigour with improvisation both formal and free, what emerges is austerely beautiful, etched in sombre hues and redolent of an unslakeable thirst to connect with a deeper well of the spirit.” (Irish Times on earlier “Nostalghia - Song for Tarkovsky”).

Booklet for Nuit blanche