CD ECM Records Gidon Kremer, Patricia Kopatchinskaja - Giya Kancheli: Chiaroscuro

2015

Gidon Kremer - vioara
Patricia Kopatchinskaja - vioara
Kremerata Baltica

Giya Kancheli - Chiaroscuro
Giya Kancheli - Twilight

This music works only if its simplicity is expressed in the most complex and wide-ranging spectrum of tone, colour and dynamics, and that is what Gidon Kremer and his wonderful orchestra produce in ‚Chiaroscuro‘, backed up by a superbly rich and detailed recording. Patricia Kopatchinskaja joins Kremer for the earlier ‘Twilight’, if anything an even more intense experience than ‘Chiaroscuro’, perhaps because it came after a life-threatening illness for the composer. Whatever the reason, the outbursts against the dying of the light are even more intense, and the consolation of the quieter music even more heart-warming.
Martin Cotton, BBC Music Magazine

‘Twilight’ is for two violins, and Kopatchinskaja joins Kremer in music of sad yet ethereal beauty that fills the room with radiance. The other score, ‘Chiaroscuro’, with Kremer alone, has fits of violence exploding out of an otherwise luminous atmosphere. It is music distinctly and honestly for and of our time, wondrously played and recorded by ECM.
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

This is Giya Kancheli’s twelfth ECM New Series album, once again working with Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica in two significant premiere recordings released to coincide with the composer’s 80th year. […] Halfway through ‘Twilight’ there is a magical episode brought in by a stunning echo effect from the soloists. Rising harmonies and shimmering tremolandos offer hope, but there is a slow sequence of dramatic downturns before worlds of profound contemplation and chilling profundity are once again entered, the whole resolving in a quiet coda of striking beauty. If Boulez was the conscience of the avant-garde in contemporary music, then Giya Kancheli might well be one of the great guardians of its Romantic spirit. Both of these pieces have an almost programmatic power to create images and shape moods, and if you love exploring the ‘adagio’ side of life then both of these works offer a great deal. Performances and recording are all exceptionally good
Dominy Clements, Music Web International

While the title work ‘Chiaroscuro’ claims to take its inspiration from a dramatic painting technique dating from the renaissance and baroque eras, its ominous opening bass drum intonations usher in a surprisingly Fellini-esque sensation. It’s a temporary optimism that’s rare to Kancheli’s generally bleak musical landscapes. Yet it is this very bleakness that makes it such a glorious match for Manfred Eicher’s signature dark yet vibrantly present recording style. For his part, Gidon Kremer’s long-standing creative partnership with Kancheli brings a unique spin and strong new influence to the performance of this work on the current disc, moving as it does from the lightness of its opening bars to the truly morose and more familiar Kancheli fair that eventually arrives.
Mark Nowakowski, Communities Digital News