Lilly Joel Plays The Organ

Sibyl Of The Rhine

Genre: MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT

Boomkat Product Review:

Hildegard von Bingen songs accompanied by pipe organ and electronics, beautifully and hauntingly realised by Belgian artist performers Lynn Cassiers & Jozef Dumoulin - RIYL Kali Malone, Áine O’Dwyer, FUJI||||||||||TA

‘Sibyl Of The Rhine’ finds the monadic songs of the C.12th mystic von Bingen adapted and subtly brought forward into the present, with an apt sense of time-lag or motion sickness of time travel arising from the use of haunted organ tones by Dumoulin, who has played the instrument since he was a teenager in the ‘80s. Together with Cassiers’ carefully pent, stately execution of the music’s ancient melodies, and the subtly intoxicating space of the recording (in an undisclosed location, but sounding like a church, replete with incidental rustles and infidelities) the effect of ‘Sibyl Of The Rhine’ is quietly transfixing and perhaps offers more to latch onto than recent investigations of the pipe organ and ancient sacred music.

The 10 parts are exactingly minimalist in a way that speaks to the players’ modestly assured confidence, grown over decades of collaboration. Between the harmonic glow and eerie transitions of ‘O Quam Miribilis’ and the sylvan bliss of ‘O Virtus Sapientiae (alternate take)’ they treat von Bingen’s songbook with respect, with results reminding of Susanna’s grand yet ascetic staging by Helge Sten in ‘O Virtus Sapientiae’ and allowing for a more psychedelic, sensuous appeal in ‘O Quam Preciosa’. Elsewhere they juxtapose the ancient songs with relatively modern works including a spellbinding recital of Schumann’s ‘Der Nussbaum’, replete with the sound of mechanical stops (or is it rain on stained glass windows?), and a final touch of absorbingly textured intimacy in their take on ‘Aguas de Marco’ by Brazilian bossa nova pioneer Tom Jobim.

CD (10)