Nov 21: ECM New Series Releases Pur ti miro - Wu Wei, Martin Stegner, Janne Saksala

ECM New Series Releases Pur ti miro

Wu Wei, Martin Stegner, Janne Saksala

Wu Wei, sheng; Martin Stegner, viola; Janne Saksala, double bass 

ECM New Series 2843
Release Date: November 21, 2025
Pre-Order/Pre-Save: https://ecm.lnk.to/PurTiMiro

Downloads and CDs available upon request.

“An entirely new world of sound opened up for me. I had never heard early music like that before: so rich in colour, so immediately moving,” says violist Martin Stegner of his first experience playing Monteverdi with Wu Wei, master of the sheng. The range of colours that Wei can coax from his instrument is remarkable, as is the sonic blending of sheng, viola and double bass in this Chinese-German-Finnish trio. Bassist Janne Saksala, who like Stegner, is also a member of the Berlin Philharmonic, shares the violist’s sense of improvisational curiosity.  Here the trio plays Claude Monteverdi’s Si dolce è’l tormento and Pur ti miro from L’incoronazione di Poppea, J. S. Bach’s organ trio sonatas Nos 1 and 4, and Antonio Vivaldi’s D minor Trio Sonata, in a programme completed by “Buremarsj frå Beiarn”, a bridal march from Norwegian folk tradition. “Over time our programme kept growing, even though it’s a challenge to arrange works for this unusual combination of sounds. We don’t aim to interpret early music in a strictly historically correct way. All of us come from different musical and cultural backgrounds and it is precisely this diversity that consciously flows into our interpretations.” The players “explore the freedom the music offers. With respect, but also with a desire for discovery”.

The sheng, whose history goes back three thousand years, is a free reed polyphonic instrument, with vertical bamboo pipes cased in a metal bowl. Its sound has been likened to the singing phoenix of Chinese legend, “silvery and fleeting as the wind.” Wu Wei plays a custom developed sheng with a key mechanism that gives him full access also to the Western tonal system. 

Born in Gaoyou in China’s Jiangsu province, Wu Wei studied the sheng at the Shanghai Conservatory and came to Germany on a DAAD scholarship in 1995, and has been based in Berlin since then, establishing a reputation as a soloist not limited by idiomatic constraints, playing in contexts from Chinese traditional repertoire to European baroque and classical music, contemporary composition, jazz, electronic music and free improvisation. A number of composers have written music for him, among them Unsuk Chin, Jukka Tiensuu and Guus Jansen, and he has worked with new music groups including Ensemble Modern and the Ensemble Intercontemporain, jazz groups including the NDR Big Band, and orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Seoul Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony. Wu Wei was last heard on ECM in 2021 as a member of the multicultural collective led by singer Cymin Samawatie and drummer Ketan Bhatti, the Trickster Orchestra. 

Martin Stegner studied violin at the Mannheim University of Music, before switching to viola, with a stipendium from the Karajan Academy. His first professional engagement was as principal viola with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. In 1996 he joined the Berlin Philharmonic. As soloist and chamber musician his repertoire extends from Bach to Piazzolla and beyond. In parallel with classical activities he has long been a committed improviser, and in 2008 co-founded the Berlin Philharmonic Jazz Group. In 2014 he made his first appearance on ECM, playing on the album Phoenix by the Berlin based band Cyminology, with whom he has also toured.  Like Wu Wei he also appears on the debut album of the Trickster Orchestra. Other affiliations have included work with Markus Stockhausen.

Janne Saksala is first principal bass of the Berlin Philharmonic, a position he has held since 2008.  He began studying the instrument in his hometown of Helsinki at the age of 14, and continued at Berlin’s Hochschule der Künste from 1986. In 1991 he was a prizewinner at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. A busy career as chamber musician and soloist has brought him together with artists such as Tabea Zimmermann, Isabelle Faust, Leonidas Kavakos, Leif Ove Andsnes, Pekka Kuusisto and Guy Braunstein. Passionate also about teaching the bass to the next generation of players, Saksala has been a mentor for many musicians.  In 2023 he took up a position as double bass professor at Berlin’s Universität der Künste and is a guest lecturer at numerous universities around the world.

Pur ti Miro was recorded at Teldex Studios, Berlin, in October 2022. CD booklet includes liner notes by Martin Stegner in German and English.