Bach to Folk

Max Baillie is a British-German classical violin virtuoso who has worked with Björk; Erik Rydvall, a Swede who plays the nyckelharpa and joined a Swiss flamenco company; Olav Luksengård Mjelva is Norwegian, plays the Hardanger fiddle and has composed for video games. An unusual outfit, then, the Lodestar Trio. They met, jammed together for days, found connections and in August 2021 recorded Bach to Folk.

In the same way that Leveret, another trio, take folk tunes and improvise, play to each other, and create something akin to baroque music, so Lodestar work with baroque pieces – mostly but not exclusively Bach (each member contributes an original tune) – and explore these, passing the melodies from instrument to instrument, improvising around themes, taking liberties with rhythms. Familiar pieces, the ‘Air from Orchestral Suite No 3’ (remember the Hamlet cigar ad?) are transformed to what, perhaps, they sprang from – folk music. In the ‘Bourrée from E Major Violin Partita’ Baillie’s violin skates over the rhythms offered by the Hardanger fiddle (which works like the contra in Hungarian music), with the nyckelharpa answering in a rougher way, like a singer with a catch in their voice. That’s how it works. And it does work. Lodestar do much more than shine a different light on Bach’s pieces, they make them anew.