Anja Lechner and François Couturier’s musical collaboration is long established, through their concerts and acclaimed recordings for ECM New Series, both in duo and with the Tarkovsky Quartet. Their successful and highly regarded duo project Moderato Cantabile featured music that oscillated between Orient and Occident. Now, with their new programme „Lontano“ the German cellist and the French pianist traverse a wide musical arc - embracing familiar melodies by Giya Kancheli, Anouar Brahem and others, and pieces which offer scope for improvisation and personal interpretation. François Couturier has also composed new music for the duo that serves as unifying element and provides a context in which improvising and free interpretation can take place. "The two musicians have refined the art of intense listening. They do not play one note too many, and use improvised passages sparingly, but pointedly. They eavesdrop for a long time and pay microscopic attention to the development of nuanced timbres, to dynamic design."