By Trio Mediaeval and 'Passionate Pilgrim'

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MUSIC REVIEW ‘Rímur’ by Trio Mediaeval and ‘Passionate Pilgrim’ by Oracle Hysterical Reviews

Two albums connect the present to the distant past, putting a new spin on everything from medieval sacred works and Scandinavian folk songs to 16th-century texts.

Trio Mediaeval’s new recording is ‘Rímur’ PHOTO: ODDLEIV APNESETH

By Allan Kozinn April 18, 2017 4:55 p.m. ET

Crossing stylistic boundaries has been important to musicians for some time now—long enough that, for several, simply mixing genres is no longer much of a challenge. Now a few ensembles are adding a new level of gamesmanship to their work, in the form of what you might call the Billy Pilgrim effect: Besides freely blending classical and pop styles, they are playing music that is unstuck in time.

Trio Mediaeval, the all-female Norwegian vocal group that established itself as powerful interpreters of music from the era it is named for—but has also ventured into new music, by way of its superb 2014 recording of Julia Wolfe’s “Steel Hammer” with the Bang on a Can All Stars (Cantaloupe)—has lately been working with Arve Henriksen, a trumpeter who moves easily in both classical music and jazz circles. On its new recording, “Rímur” (ECM), the group sings medieval sacred works and Scandinavian folk songs, with improvisations by Mr. Henriksen connecting the distant past to the present. In a similar spirit, Oracle Hysterical, a four-member composers’ collective and chamber ensemble that describes itself as “part band, part book club,” has joined forces with New Vintage Baroque, a period-instrument ensemble, for “Passionate Pilgrim” (VIA a set of 14 songs based on poetry by Shakespeare and others, from the collection of the same name, issued by the London publisher William Jaggard in 1599.

Trio Mediaeval’s label, ECM, has brokered early music, new music and jazz summits before, including the Hilliard Ensemble’s collaborations with the saxophonist Jan Garbarek and the guitarist Terje Rypdal, and the tenor John Potter’s Elizabethan lutesong recordings with an anachronistic saxophone and double bass in the accompanying lute and violin consort. Trio Mediaeval and Mr. Henriksen appear to have built their own relationship over several years of joint concerts, but ECM is clearly the right home for “Rímur.”

The recording, though, leaves a listener with the sense that the relationship is still a work in progress. Mr. Henriksen’s solos are brief, recessed and fairly staid; this is not Hildegard of Bingen meets Coltrane. Even so, there are times when the trumpet sounds weirdly out of place, a modern interloper amid the angelic, close harmonies that are this trio’s signature sound.

Typically, the group establishes that sound in a few verses before dropping into a wordless hum, sometimes accompanying itself on a Norwegian folk fiddle or a shruti box (a bellows instrument that provides an earthy drone), to leave space for Mr. Henriksen’s commentary. When it succeeds—as it does in “Rosa rorans bonitatem,” an exquisite hymn by the 14th-century Swedish composer Nils Hermansson, in which Mr. Henriksen’s solo is like a meditative vocal line, or “Du är den första,” a Swedish shanty to which the trumpeter brings inventive rhythmic ornamentation—the collaboration has an otherworldliness that is difficult to resist.

“Passionate Pilgrim” is the mirror image of “Rímur.” Where Trio Mediaeval offers early music with a gentle contemporary twist, the four composers of Oracle Hysterical—Doug and Brad Balliett (who are twins), Majel Connery and Elliot Cole —present contemporary works built on 16th-century texts, cloaked in 18th-century timbres. The singing, mostly by Ms. Connery, sometimes by Mr. Cole (or both), is uninflected and vibrato-free, alternately borrowing from the interpretive sophistication of jazz or musical theater and the deliberate naivete of folk-rock.

The set is not without musical ancestors. Parts—Ms. Connery’s setting of “Crabbed Age and Youth,” for example—call to mind “The Juliet Letters,” the 1993 song cycle that Elvis Costello wrote and recorded with the Brodsky Quartet, a work that has held up nicely.

But “Passionate Pilgrim” is more diverse. Ms. Connery’s setting of “Sweet Cytherea” has a thoroughly Schubertian lilt, while Doug Balliett’s music for “Beauty Is” evokes Kate Bush’s idiosyncratic sense of melody, and Mr. Cole’s “When My Love Sweares” summons the atmosphere of early 20th-century French chanson. And through it all, the New Vintage Baroque players are perfect chameleons, chugging along like a rock band one moment, a jazz band the next, and a Baroque ensemble only fleetingly.

Time was when an ensemble’s fans might wonder where the group’s explorations would take them next. Now, listeners should wonder not only where, but also when.

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