ZRI: Ben Harlan, Max Baillie, Matthew Sharp, Joe Banks, Iris Pissaride - Cellar Sessions [CD]

Cat. no: FHR136
Format: CD
Barcode: 5060216343136
Release Date: 11 Nov 2022
Genre: World Music

For nearly a hundred years, the doors of the famous Red Hedgehog coffee house (Zum roten Igel) opened onto the very heart of Viennese musical life

The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde established the city's frst public concert hall there, hosting regular premières by Beethoven, and then Schubert, who even lived next door at one point. As if that wasn't enough, the complex of buildings included a bar at the back with a vaulted cellar that later became Brahms's favourite haunt, where patrons caroused and who knows what kind of musical activities went on after hours.The original building was demolished in 1906, but the spirit of the great composers feeding off the soundscape of a dynamic and cosmopolitan urban culture lives on in ZRI. Schubert and Brahms were both fascinated by Hungarian 'Gypsy-band' music and it became as fashionable as the waltz in Vienna, with one of the tunes included here still a concert favourite even now in an arrangement by Brahms. Bach may never have been to the city but some of his music must surely have been performed at the Igel and his ghost presided over the whole tradition.

And this recording celebrates ghosts from the future too. American tunes were being played in Vienna even in Brahms's time, and once the frst recordings started to arrive the jazz infuence on improvising Hungarian bands and artists like Georges Boulanger was immediate. The transatlantic favour of Hora din Budesti and Tamboo owes much to this uniquely Viennese melting pot and, if the Igel still stood, the fusion of old-world instruments with contemporary songs by Donna Summer, Solange and Taylor Swift would not be out of place.

ZRI take their name from Zum Roten Igel, the legendary Viennese venue in the times when Brahms and Schubert were alive; a serious classical concert hall on one side, and a space where composers drank, and caroused on the other.

Tracks: Georges Boulanger: Tokay / Taylor Swift/ Abe Schwartz: Shake it Off/ Lebedik un Freylach / Aurel Gore: Hora din Budesti / Donna Summer: I Feel Love / J.S. Bach: Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001: IV. Presto / Jay Gorney: Brother can you spare a dime? / Francisco Cavez: Tamboo / Schubert: Piano Trio No. 3 in E fat major: II. Andante con moto / Solange: Scales / Miska Borzo: Isteni Csardas / Georges Boulanger: Boulevard Boulanger / Helmut Ritter: Rote Rosen