Ultimately, we could stop right there: Anja Lechner’s first solo cello album, Bach, Abel, Hume (ECM, 2024), is extraordinarily beautiful. One could simply recommend listening to it, thus avoiding the awkwardness of describing the origin of this delicate and complex project, which involves a series of detours and side paths chosen to construct an artistic identity that is difficult to contain in a few lines. If her thirty-two albums recorded for Manfred Eicher’s label were not enough – including solo and ensemble projects – one could invoke the maxim of Georges Ivanovič Gurdjieff: “The greatest mistake is to believe that man has a permanent unity. A man is never one; he is constantly changing. He rarely remains the same, even for half an hour,” and accompany it with his extensive theory on the necessary path from wakefulness to consciousness. In both cases, he unwittingly alludes to the fragments of Heraclitus. […]
Anja Lechner performs works by Bach, Abel, and Hume
Although the German cellist is not a jazz musician by training, her career has often intersected with the rhythms and styles of improvisation over the years – from Dino Saluzzi to François Couturier. Here's what she told us.
