ECM Records 50th Anniversary: 1969-2019
Founded in 1969 by Manfred Eicher, a producer and musician experienced in both jazz and classical idioms, ECM Records began to include contemporary composition in its catalogue in the late 1970s with Steve Reich's landmark "Music for 18 Musicians" and, subsequently, recordings of Meredith Monk. The 1984 release of Arvo Pärt's "Tabula Rasa" – with Gidon Kremer and Keith Jarrett playing opening piece "Fratres" – launched ECM New Series. Close alliances with Pärt, Monk and other composers including György Kurtág, Giya Kancheli, Valentin Silvestrov, Tigran Mansurian, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Heinz Holliger, Heiner Goebbels, Alexander Knaifel, Eleni Karaindrou, Dobrinka Tabakova, Helena Tulve and Kate Moore, are a defining feature of the label.
Read more…Gidon Kremer, as later also Kim Kashkashian and Anja Lechner in similar roles, remained an important champion of new music at ECM. In 1999 András Schiff came into the picture who over the years would provide an impressive series of standard setting recordings of the central repertoire between Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Janáček. "Officium" with saxophonist Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble marked another step of evolution, confronting the purity of spiritual choral music with Garbarek's intense improvisations. Further exploratory juxtapositions of early music and improvising followed with the Dowland Project, the Trio Mediaeval and Rolf Lislevand.
In a category of his own is Keith Jarrett, one of very few musicians acknowledged as a great improviser and a distinguished interpreter of classical repertoire. His recordings of Shostakovich, Barber, Bartók, Händel, Mozart and above all Bach have been widely praised. Jarrett's legendary improvised solo concerts, meanwhile, are informed by his deep experience of jazz and acute awareness of contemporary composition. A major influence for a generation of players and listeners, Jarrett's solo concerts could be considered classical music of our time.
[Due to geo-blocking restrictions, some tracks might be unavailable in certain territories.]