Eternity and a Year: Recent Music on ECM

Eternity and a Year gathers music from ECM’s 2002 production year, the label’s 33rd, when more than 40 recordings appeared. The double album forms a two-way mirror. Disc 1 returns the listener’s altered image; Disc 2 stands behind the glass, observing that reflection and discovering its afterlife. Jazz and classical music become opposed memories: one improvises its ancestry, while the other remembers futures that never arrived. Disc 1: The Silvered Face On Kyanos (ECM 1822), Jon Balke & Magnetic North Orchestra continue the journey begun on Further, uniting Per Jørgensen, Arve Henriksen, Anders Jormin, and Audun Kleive. In “Mutatio,” piano gestures rise and the ensemble answers with soft interruptions. “Sarabande Nouvelle,” the emotional hinge of Christian Wallumrød Ensemble’s Sofienberg Variations (ECM 1809), bears a similar patina. Its sorrow seems inherited from an unnamed century. Horns and rubato swells give it ceremonial stature, while its composure trembles like someone holding…