Maya Fridman: Ordo Ritualis (Black & White Editions)
TRPTK

Five years in the making, Maya Fridman's Ordo Ritualis arrives in two editions, though in truth the differences between them are slight. Reflecting the diametric relationship between black and white, the solo cello sets present the same six pieces but in reverse running order; aside from some adjustments in sound balance, the primary difference has to do with the bonus remixes by electronic music artist Madiel: a meditative ambient treatment of Heather Pinkham's Days Blur on the white edition and an IDM makeover of Kaveh Vares' Egidius on the black. Those works plus the four by Missy Mazzoli, Fjóla Evans, Bryce Dessner, and Martijn Padding grapple with the concept of ritual in arresting ways.

The black edition's sequence seems to me the better of the two, given that it advances from Mazzoli's contemporary re-imagining of the traditional vespers prayer service to Vares' powerful, long-from lament. Captivated by the original violin-and-electronics version recorded by Olivia De Prato, Fridman asked Mazzoli to create a cello arrangement of Vespers, the result the gripping and suitably haunting treatment presented here. The cellist's formidable technique is drawn upon but always utilized in service to the work in question. Hearing her searing, vibrato-enhanced instrument hovering over a droning base of electronics proves more than a little bewitching, especially when choral voices and echoing cellos ripple across the stereo field. Whereas Mazzoli's setting in rooted in the practice of religious ritual, Evans' Vatnaskuggi - Meeting your water shadow has to do with, in the composer's words, "an imagined seaside ritual that brings our protagonist face-to-face with aspects of her own self that she would rather leave simmering under the surface, submerged under the crashing waves.” Not the only time it happens on the recording, Fridman's soft voice intones alongside cello to personalize the performance. The most memorable element, however, is the oceanic array of cellos she generates when not gently strumming the instrument.

Each of the other works possesses a fascinating origin story. Dessner's Tuusula, for instance, was composed for cellist Nicolas Altstaedt during the composer's residency at Pekka Kuusisto's Meidän Festivaali, held in Tuusula, Jean Sibelius's hometown. Basking in the peaceful serenity of the lakeside locale, Dessner found inspiration in the woods and water that surrounded him whenever he stepped outside. It might have been written for Altstaedt, but Fridman makes it her own with an impassioned rendering that encompasses tremulous gestures, plucked chords, and strokes so ferociously executed they verge on convulsive.

Written for cellist Frances-Marie Uitti in 1998, Padding's Give Me One More Night incorporated into its original presentation a technique Uitti developed involving the use of two bows in one hand—one above and one below the strings—to play all four strings of the instrument simultaneously. In 2020, Fridman transformed Uitti's version into a duet for voice and cello that became for Fridman a kind of meditative ritual. At fourteen minutes, the performance is the album's longest and does indeed advance slowly; it also, however, wholly sustains interest for its ghostly harmonic effects and the entrancing vocal part that enters midway through. Originating out of the same period, Pinkham composed Days Blur for the cellist during the early days of the pandemic. Consistent with the title, the sorrow-tinged work attempts in its use of dramatic contrasts to parallel the emotional extremes the composer experienced, from despair and anger to acceptance and sadness; ritual here emerges in the new daily practices she and others devised to cope with the disorientation the pandemic wrought. Fridman's voice is again present, though this time delivering lyrics rather than wordlessly complementing the cello.

In writing Egidius, Vares found inspiration in a poem written by Jan van Hulst or Jan Moritoen during the fourteenth century in memory of Egidius Michaelis. The sense of longing and hope for transcendence conveyed by the poem's words (in the English translation, “Egidius, where art thou gone? / I yearn for thee, my gentle friend / Thou chose the grave, and left me lone”) affected Vares deeply and prompted the work's creation. For Fridman, it's the poem's hope for a reunion in the afterlife (“Keep thou my place at thy dear side!”) that suggested its tie to the ritual concept. After a furious opening, the piece settles into a contemplative mode until Fridman couples her heartfelt singing of the Middle Dutch text with her always expressive and passionate playing. The Madiel remix that follows retains the haunting essence of the original but builds on it with ambient-electronic atmospherics and glitchy drum breaks. By comparison, the Madiel makeover of Pinkham's Days Blur on the white edition opts for a panoramically rich ambient treatment whose blurry blend of nature sounds, celestial voices, and cello drones amplifies its transporting effect.

June 2025