The poet Paul Celan (1920-70) is the abiding inspiration of violinist Dominique Pifarély's Suite: Anabasis new this month on the Jazzdor Series label. Celan, born in Romania to a German-speaking Jewish family and who studied medicine in Paris just before the second world war, was later sent by the Nazis to a forced labour camp from which he escaped. He wrote mainly in German and was influenced by surrealism. On this studio recording of Pifarély's composition Suite: Anabasis the violinist, known for his work on the ECM label for instance 2015 release solo violin album Time Before and Time After on which literary inspirations included Mahmoud Darwish, Fernando Pessoa and again Celan figured can punctuate bittersweet tonalities with jostling staccato phrasing as easily as he can conjure lovely legato reveries. With Pifarély on the suite are cellists Valentin Ceccaldi and Bruno Ducret, flautist Sylvaine Hélary, saxophonists Matthieu Metzger and François Corneloup, pianist Antonin Rayon and drummer François Merville. An anabasis if you are wondering say Jazzdor ''is an expedition from a coastline up into the interior of a country'' and also represents ''the rise of the spirit towards the sacred mountain, the celestial world.''
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