Anna Gadt, Warsaw Cello Quartet, Milan Rabij

Is an open dialogue of polarity possible? A dialogue of human existence in the cosmos and in nature, set against the backdrop of contemporary technology? That the feeling of being torn or detached is permanently inscribed in human nature is a truism. Yet we don’t always recognize the nature of this detachment—sometimes it seems like a separation from something immense, completely different from what humanity itself is. From a certain perspective, one could say that the many myths, symbols, rituals, and mystical techniques embodying coincidentia oppositorum testify to a longing for a lost paradise, a nostalgia for a paradoxical state in which contradictions exist not by canceling each other out, but in which diversity itself forms unity. In this sense, we are closer as individuals, because we share a common longing for the unknown and the struggle to unite opposites.

In the context of the album, Coincidentia Oppositorum is the unity of a non improvising quartet—rooted in classical music—with the voice, the first instrument whose domain is expression through improvisation. It is a combination of word and abstraction, composition and the unknown, the planned with the moment, and silence with sound.