“A brilliant young trio. With extreme sensitivity to colour and nuance, Fred Thomas has made these organ preludes into tiny character pieces for chamber ensemble” – BBC Music Magazine
“Thomas’ treatment of the Baroque score was modern but respectful. The pieces were full of colour and creativity making full use of the dynamic combination of violin, cello and piano…great concept” – Bachtrack
A New Series presented by F-IRE Collective and Kammer Klang, curated by Fred Thomas.
Fourteenth century France was a place of radical musical developments, particularly in rhythmic structures, polyphony and notation systems. The greatest testament to this style is the Chantilly Codex, a book of music by Ars Subtilior composers featuring the exquisite mannerist notation of the time. This Codex, with it’s heart-shaped musical scores, staves representing the strings of a harp and riddle canons set out in 33-bar spirals, has become something of an obsession, hugely influencing my own composition. The experimentation of composers such as Solage, Johannes Ciconia and Baude Cordier gave birth to a brief effervescence of richness and complexity, a period of highly idiosyncratic art which left little in the way of posterity. In this respect it seems to me to have the capacity to connect deeply with contemporary artists; this fleeting and isolated style, in leaving no immediate descendants, retains its perennial novelty and remains forever gilded in mystery.
The F-IRE Klang Codex monthly concert series is an attempt to gather my musical thoughts and influences into one beautiful place: a church. Churches are profoundly peaceful spaces in which deep focus and concentration become a little easier, but they are also resonant spaces where, tired of grating PA systems and excessive volume, one can revel in rich, natural, acoustic resonance. The beautiful St. George-in-the-East Church is one of six Hawksmoor Churches in England and houses an organ and a very special Bluthner grand piano. It is also situated by the infamous Ratcliffe Highway, an old Roman Road known in the 19th century as home to, according to one visitor, the “lowest types of humanity of almost every nation”, as well as the opium dens frequented by Oscar Wilde, and was later the site of the historic anti-fascist Cable Street Riots.
In the programming of this concert series my own musical experiences have been combined with those of other F-IRE Collective and Kammer Klang members – in particular Lucy Railton – to compile an unwritten codex that represents our present-day activities in London. The music therein is full of bizarre and inescapable 21st Century contrasts – from Ars Subtilior to Griot music, from Gyorgy Kurtag to Hildegard von Bingen – and certainly has a more nebulous identity than the Chantilly Codex. That is an inexorable fact of our current musical lives, but the hope is that through the haze of eclecticism these strange combinations will be strangely illuminating.
Listen to live recordings from F-IRE Klang Codex below:
Here is Johann Sebastian Bach in transfigured light: with organ chorale preludes, vocal cantata movements and orchestral sinfonias – 24 pieces in all – transcribed for trio and solo piano by Fred Thomas, and threaded into a compelling new sequence by Manfred Eicher.
On Three Or One, Bach’s idiom is respectfully explored by three innovative players, a process Thomas describes as “quietly joyful,” and the trio pieces, primarily drawn from Bach’s Orgelbüchlein, acquire a fresh character in the hands of Kazakh violinist Aisha Orazbayeva and British cellist Lucy Railton, musicians more often associated with contemporary composition’s cutting edge.
Fred Thomas, who makes his ECM New Series debut here, has always worked across contexts and genres, and considers the trio’s wide-ranging experience “an incitement to creativity. Bach often re-used his own material and it is no surprise it came out differently each time. With his imaginative, technical and improvisatory powers, do we really believe that Bach would play the same thing the same way twice?” It’s a good question, and the key to the approach taken on Three Or One.
“Mesmerizing…utterly beguiles…an illuminating if idiosyncratic Bachian” – BBC Music Magazine
“Thomas’ ECM debut sees him elegantly arrange and reinvent a series of Bach sinfonias, vocal cantata and organ preludes” – The Guardian
“Lyrical and haunting. It’s hard to know what Bach would have thought of it, but it does seem to reveal deep secrets in the music, and it is, well, very much like nothing anyone has heard before” – All Music
“Let this programme sink in over several hearings and the music will quietly insinuate itself into your next playlist” – Gramophone
“One of the most transportive albums of the year” – Between Sound and Space
“Fred Thomas is an astonishingly fine musician…highly effective, and deeply affecting” – The Arts Desk
“Magnificent sonorities and meticulous transcriptions from Fred Thomas” – France Musique
“Fred Thomas transfigures the master…interpreted with nuance and extreme sensitivity” – FIP Radio
“The essence of Bach’s music is further magnified. A Bach record to be remembered” – RTBF Belgium
“Wonderfully musical, sensitively communicative” – Fono Forum
“Those led by their emotional response will be touched by Bach’s calm and grace. Church music becomes chamber music” – Stern
“Magnificently performed…Thomas manages to play Bach perfectly, or better still intimately…lively, current, eclectic, contemporary… A precious recording” – Giornale della Musica
“Be prepared for something different from what you can possibly imagine” – Yellow Box
“This is a beautiful album that is flawless in its conception and execution and plunges the listener into Bach’s world with a fresh perspective and set of ears. Essential listening” – JazzViews
“Thomas has shown himself to be both fearless and deferential in his interpretations. He remains faithful to the source, radical in execution but beholden to the intention…an easy, joyful listen” – Stereophile *****
“Intelligent and musical, sensitive and powerful…the pianist and magician Fred Thomas has created an opus that opens the ears; meditative and contemplative and at the same time expressly offering succour for our thoughts and feelings” – Neue Musik Zeitung
Recorded 2012/2018
University of Huddersfield,
courtesy of Pierre-Alexandre Tremblay
Engineers: Alex Bonney, Pierre-Alexandre Tremblay and Rob Sutherland (trios),
Elliott Parkin (solos)
Recording producer: Fred Thomas
Liner Photos: Phelan Burgoyne, Francis Fuego, Scarlett Casciello
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