But no matter. Frantz Loriot is the viola master I speak of above. The 2014 recording of his solo viola improvisations is entitled Reflections on an Introspective Path (neithernor n/n 002). I covered Frantz's large ensemble compositions the other day, and he has distinguished the proceedings of a number of improv ensembles as violist. I've covered a number of these as well, as the index search box above will reveal.
In spite of all that (and it is excellent) this recording perhaps represents the ultimate challenge. Hit the studios with only yourself and your viola. Create a CDs worth of edgy solo viola improvisations.
The key to such an outing is expressive invention. Frantz Loriot has that. He disregards much of the time the accepted conventions of string technique and instead forges his own path of timbrally rich, counter-"legitimate" extensions of the sonic possibilities of the viola. And each of the seven improvisations contained on the album concentrates on a particular extension complex and its expressive potential.
In the end we have an ever-contrasting series of adventures. Loriot is not content to stay in place, but rather to confront a widening vector of extended techniques with a free jazz fire and a new music recombinatory abstraction of means.
This will not be everyone's cup of tea. But for those who let themselves open up to the sound dynamics Frantz so single-mindedly masters on this program, it is a revelation. As the Marcel Duchamp quote on the album sleeve implies, sometimes you have to free yourself of the technical habits of normality in order to create anew. Loriot does this consistently and poetically.
And so you who seek to go beyond need to hear this.
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