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Fascinating Fiddles

Thomas Georgi | Toronto, ON Canada | 01/13/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album consists entirely of new music for hardanger fiddle or 6 string electric violin, together with classical or tweleve string guitar. Scared off? Don't be; my whole family has come to love this CD.As a musician myself, who makes his living playing 17th and 18th century classical music, I don't usually have much contact with new or popular music, but I have become increasingly enchanted with this CD. Dan Trueman uses the tradition of the hardanger fiddle as a point of departure, and has created his own delightful music of amazing richness of timbre and texture. I have really enjoyed playing track 5, Wallflower, for my professional colleagues, and asking them to guess what the instrument is. They start out thinking Dan is playing a cello, and by the end of the tune they don't know what to think, but they are impressed. Dan's electric violin is used, not so much for the advantage of power that musicians usually turn to electric instruments for, but for the flexibility of range and tuning that I think has its real parallel in the instrumental traditions of the 17th century. (Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the hardanger fiddle appeared in the 17th century.) Like performers of traditional music, Dan Trueman and Monica Mugan have created this music without first notating it, something perhaps belonging to even older traditions. This CD is a most unexpected delight."