Ethiopiques 21: Ethiopian Song

Label: Buda Musique

Here it is. This is it. The most achingly beautiful record of 2006. And what a story! Born in 1923 into a learned Ethiopian family, Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou was educated in Switzerland (where she first learned piano) and Cairo as well as in her native country. At the age of 24, having been denied the opportunity to study piano in England, she became a nun. Even after leaving the monastery and taking up teaching, she devoted her life to religion and helping the poor. Four solo piano albums, from which are drawn the contents of this disc, date from 1963 (two), 1970, and 1996. Her compositions are sometimes modal or pentatonic, sometimes redolent of the romantic harmonies of salon music, but always gently meditative, exuding an undulating calm that sometimes suggests Impressionism with its feverish purple patches replaced by a quietly mournful resignation or a patiently peaceful religious acceptance.