Rodopa Legend

Anatoly Vapirov's Rodopa Legend belongs to the part of his output where the free improvisation he is known for as a saxophonist meets written orchestral form. Vapirov, born in Ukraine in 1947 and settled in Bulgaria since 1972, has spent his career on the border between jazz and composed music, and the Rhodope mountains — with their drone singing and their long-held vocal lines — have been a recurring source for Bulgarian composers looking for material that resists the tempered scale.