Jan Garbarek & The Hilliard Ensemble

On Tour
Play Radio
Listen to Jan Garbarek & The Hilliard Ensemble Radio, featuring artists like Jan Garbarek, Jan Garbarek Group, The Hilliard Ensemble, John Surman and more…

161,231 plays (7,672 listeners)

Send Ringtones to Cell
Buy
Add to my Library
Jan Garbarek & The Hilliard Ensemble.

In 1994, while fearlessly searching for new conceptions of sound and not caring where he found them, Jan Garbarek joined hands with the classical early-music movement, improvising around the four male voices of The Hilliard Ensemble. Now here was a radical idea guaranteed to infuriate both hardcore jazz buffs and the even more pristine more-authentic-than-thou folk in early music circles. Yet this unlikely fusion works stunningly well — and even more hearteningly, went over the heads of the purists and became a hit album at a time when gregorian chants were a hot item. Chants, early polyphonic music, and Renaissance motets by composers like Morales and Dufay form the basic material, bringing forth a cool yet moving spirituality in Garbarek’s work. Recorded in a heavily reverberant Austrian monastery, the voices sometimes develop in overwhelming waves, and Garbarek rides their crest, his soprano sax soaring in the monastery acoustic, or he underscores the voices almost unobtrusively, echoing the voices, finding ample room to move around the modal harmonies yet applying his sound sparingly.

Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble have continued their collaboration on two more records, both released on ECM Records.
Read more… Edit bio

Popular tags: , , , ,  See more

Share this artist:

Top Albums

Top Tracks

1
23
2  
10
3  
9
3  
9
5  
8
5  
8
5  
8
5  
8
5  
8
10  
7
10  
7
12  
6
12  
6
12  
6
15  
5
Buy all tracks at Amazon MP3
See more

Shoutbox

Leave a comment. Log in to Last.fm or sign up (it’s free).

  • Tom_Kallen

    i have no experience to describe stuff like this, but i like it :)

    March 2012

  • theseasonisours

    phenomenal..

    January 2012

  • lastffm

    "Der Wohlklang ist das Wichtigste" Mit "Officium" wurde der norwegische Saxofonist Jan Garbarek berühmt, jetzt kommt "Officium Novum". Ein Gespräch über Jazz, Spiritualität und Entspannungsmusik. http://www.zeit.de/kultur/musik/2010-09/jan-garbarek-officium

    October 2010

  • morthvargr

    When I first heard about this combination I thought there's no way it would work but it really really does. Fantastic stuff.

    August 2010

  • MirkoFait

    I like his music :)

    February 2009

  • sinisha

    simply masterful!

    February 2009

  • blueniversity

    great sound - where was it recorded again?

    January 2009

  • agnosticmystic

    Gorgeous

    December 2008
See all 12 shouts

Videos

Events

See more Add event

Top Listeners

See more