On Transylvanian Dance, their second ECM duo album, Romanian pianist Lucian Ban and American violist Mat Maneri follow the trail of Béla Bartók. Every piece comes from the songs and dances the Hungarian composer collected and transcribed in Transylvania in the early 20th century. For the duo these tunes are "springboards and sources of melodic material", arranged so that they keep the spirit of the originals and still leave room for improvisation.
Ban and Maneri have played together since 2009, and their first ECM album, Transylvanian Concert, appeared in 2013. In 2020 they returned to Bartók's collections with saxophonist John Surman on Transylvanian Folk Songs. Ban grew up in a village in Transylvania, so the material is close to home for him. This set was recorded live on 29 October 2022 at CJT Hall in Timișoara, within the Retracing Bartók project for Timișoara 2023 European Capital of Culture. Uțu Pascu recorded the concert, and Steve Lake produced the album and wrote the liner notes.
Both musicians arranged all eight pieces, and they treat Bartók's notation with respect without feeling bound by it. The opener, Poor Is My Heart, sets a lithe, firm piano against a viola that recalls older reed and wind sounds. In Lover Mine of Long Ago Ban plucks and mutes the strings inside the piano, and the mood turns dark beneath the dance rhythms. The closing Make Me, Lord, Slim and Tall lets blues cadences and Romanian scales meet. Elsewhere Maneri's slurs and long upper-register tones, schooled in his father Joe Maneri's microtonal approach, add mystery to Ban's dense harmonies.
Critics stressed the intimacy of the partnership. In the Financial Times Mike Hobart found the mood more sombre than on the trio record, with "viola and piano engagingly close-knit". Rob Shepherd of Post Genre heard music that is not quite folk, classical or jazz, and concluded: "Ultimately, it is human music, and that is what makes it so beautiful." Konstantin N. Rega in Spectrum Culture was cooler, noting how the rough, agitated viola strains against the steadier piano.
This is the CD edition, ECM 2824, released on 30 August 2024, in an O-card with a 16-page booklet.
