A Vividly Graceful Ballet Score for Strings by Ljova

Eclectic film composer/viola virtuoso/gypsy rocker Ljova’s latest album, Melting River, is a ballet soundtrack commissioned by choreographer Aszure Barton and developed at the Banff Center in Alberta, Canada. The composer calls this his most personal work and it’s without a doubt his most intimate. An alternate title could have been Dancing With Myself – woops, that one’s taken. Playing as a one-man string trio or quartet here, he multitracks and loops himself on two instruments, viola and the custom-made fadolin, a 6-string violin/viola/cello hybrid. The music is elegant but lively, pensive yet liquidly kinetic, anchored by looped or circular phrases in the lower registers as bright melodies sail overhead.

The lithely dancing initial cut, Album Leaf is the most modern, artfully embellishing a simple, circular pizzicato melody and adding voices, some of them electronically processed, until it’s almost as if there’s a brass section playing them. Likewise, There You Have It balances a series of gracefully dexterous, minimalist leaps against  austere swells and then finally variations on a bluesy Gershwinesque riff.

A blend of modernist and High Romantic, the title track, an early spring tableau, could be Philip Glass doing Gabriel Faure, building from hopeful to somewhat anxious as it appears the river has a ways to go before it melts. It ends atmospheric and unresolved. By contrast, a miniature titled Asha works a catchy contrapuntal theme in 7/4 time, spiced with banjo-like pizzicato.

Birds is another narrative, swooping and suddenly looming in anxiously before a wry seagull voice makes an appearance…and then the cycle begins again. Another track in seven, aptly titled 7-4 works some neat contrasts and thematic handoffs between voices and registers over more tricky syncopation, with a jazzier feel than anything else on the album. The final cut, Never is a Good Time, is a Russian gypsy melody at heart, cleverly expanded and given plenty of breathing room. The whole album is streaming at Ljova’s Bandcamp site, something more composers should be doing.

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