What happens when an established classical pianist and jazz saxophonist pool together their not inconsiderable resources in the service of artistic experimentation and innovation? For Norwegian pair Leif Ove Andsnes and Marius Neset, the result is ‘Who We Are’, an imaginatively conceived album featuring performances of dazzling quality that do not so much combine classical with jazz as forge unique and compelling styles of their own.

These creative synergies are drawn into sharp focus on the title-track. Composed by Neset (as are all compositions on this album), Who We Are opens with a graceful FM-friendly theme on soprano saxophone and flute supported by delicate broken chords on piano and pizzicato cello. Returning at various points during the suite’s cyclical four-movement structure, this gentle theme nevertheless journeys down more agitated pathways during the second part, which features florid bebop-style interjections from Neset. A solo introduction for cello at the beginning of the third, played with a combination of lyric poise and expressive intensity by Louisa Tuck, is followed by a spirited final movement, the focus this time on flautist Ingrid Neset, its lively syncopated rhythmic patterns suggesting Steve Reich’s counterpoint pieces.

Andsnes and Neset performed publicly together for the first time in 2018 at the Bergen International Festival, where they played an arrangement of Prague’s Ballet – think Fauré’s Pavane in a kind of reggae reshuffle, Neset’s soprano saxophone side-stepping the theme’s D minor tonality with impressive flights of improvisational fantasy. Other highlights include Waterfall Jig, a dynamic folk-jazz duet between tenor saxophone and cello where increasingly virtuosic lines are traded between both instruments against a pulsing pedal note, and Road to Polaris, which explores points of timbral contact and contrast, this time between flute and tenor saxophone.

While the album’s stylistic smorgasbord may appear somewhat confusing to some listeners, there’s no denying the quality of technique and musicianship on display. If nothing else, ‘Who We Are’ demonstrates very clearly that Andsnes and Neset are far more than the classical and jazz by-products of what the music industry thinks they are.