Strawa no Sertão is an album of music by Egberto Gismonti played by a chamber ensemble led by the flutist Bernard Wystraëte, with the composer as guest pianist. Its centre is the five-movement suite of the title, written in 1993, which imagines Igor Stravinsky living in the Sertão, the dry and poor hinterland of northeastern Brazil. Released in 2005 on Gismonti's label Carmo, it presents the suite in Gismonti's own arrangement for chamber group.
The ensemble is a kind of village band: Véronique Briel on piano, Philippe Berrod on clarinet and Philippe Macé on vibraphone. Jean-Yves Casala plays guitar, Pierre Strauch cello and Frédéric Guérouet accordion. Wystraëte plays the flutes and holds the musical and artistic direction. The sessions took place at Studio Labroue in Paris in May, June and September 2001, with a further session at the Auditorium Magne in February 2002. Philippe Labroue recorded the music, and Gismonti co-produced.
The suite sets Stravinsky's irregular accents against Brazilian dance forms. Its movement titles name them: Maxixe, Bumba meu boi / Maracatu, Choro & Baião, Forró, and a closing Cherubin I. Around it are other Gismonti pieces, five of them arranged by Wystraëte from Gismonti's own piano interpretations. In Sanfona, named after the Brazilian word for accordion, Guérouet's instrument leads and Gismonti joins on piano. O amor que move o sol e outras estrelas is a slow, wordless piece that is rarely heard, and Baião Malandro gains a jazzier edge from Macé's vibraphone.
In the text on the ECM page, Gismonti says that "all European cultures and other cultures are part of ours". The line suits a Brazilian suite about a Russian composer, recorded by a Paris ensemble. Writing on ECM Reviews in 2020, Tyran Grillo called the suite "a humorous musical fantasy in five parts" and placed this Karatê among the best Gismonti interpretations he knew. He also noted that it was Wystraëte's first album for Carmo, devoted entirely to Gismonti's music. Gismonti had earlier recorded music from the suite with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra on his ECM album Meeting Point.
CD, catalogue number CARMO/15, released on 9 May 2005 by Carmo and distributed by ECM.
