Red, the first solo album by Vancouver cellist Marina Hasselberg, paints a portrait of a multi-faceted artist whose musical interest span centuries. As she shows with the opening track, a performance of the First Ricercar for cello by 17th century Italian composer Domenico Gabrielli, she is an interpreter of Baroque music with a sense of delicacy and warmth. This impression is further reinforced by her beautiful realization of contemporary Toronto composer Linda Catlin Smith’s own Ricercar for solo cello, a quasi-Baroque piece that Hasselberg plays with a refined expressiveness. Smith’s piece is one of the album’s highlights, along with the closing track, Vancouver composer/guitarist Craig Aalder’s Things Fall Apart for cello and tape, an achingly moving ambient piece. Other tracks show Hasselberg’s more experimental side. She is joined by drums, guitar, and violin for a couple of free improvisations, and improvises three pieces in duet with Italian-born, Vancouver electronics artist Giorgio Magnanensi.
Daniel Barbiero
Avant Music News 