Wolfert Brederode, Matangi Quartet, Joost Lijbaart

Ruins and Remains is a suite for piano, string quartet and percussion by Dutch pianist Wolfert Brederode, written in 2018 to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. Through many concert performances it grew away from its commemorative origin. "At a number of levels, the piece has to do with grief and loss and learning to stand up again," Brederode says. The music moves between bleak and guardedly hopeful moods, with the line between written and improvised parts left open.

It is Brederode's fourth album for ECM as a leader, after Currents (2007), Post Scriptum (2011) and the trio record Black Ice (2016). He first came to the label as pianist with singer Susanne Abbuehl. Here he works with two old partners. The Matangi Quartet, founded in 1999 by students of the conservatories of The Hague and Rotterdam, has known him since their student years. Percussionist Joost Lijbaart has played with him in duo and in Yuri Honing's acoustic quartet. The album was recorded in August 2021 at the Sendesaal in Bremen, engineered by Stefano Amerio and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Fourteen short pieces form the suite, framed by four movements called Ruins that rest on a melancholy but tonal figure. Their textures are among the most abstract on the album, built up from the rustle of Lijbaart's brushes and long held string tones. Against them stand the songlike Swallow, the floating Cloudless and the desolate Remains, under two minutes long. Nothing for Granted keeps a doleful martial beat, while some passages recall the repeating figures of minimal music.

Critics stressed the restraint of the playing and the balance of the ensemble. In Jazz Journal, Fred Grand praised Brederode's "great economy of touch and dark, poetic lyricism" and called the album "a poignantly beautiful piece of work." Michael Toland of The Big Takeover noted that the strings "enhance the pianist's melodies without pushing them into lush territory." Released in 2022, the record was also heard by several reviewers against the background of the war in Ukraine.

CD edition, ECM 2734, released on 23 September 2022, with liner notes by Steve Lake and cover art by Mayo Bucher.