CD ECM Records Kim Kashkashian, Robyn Schulkowsky: Hayren - Music Of Komitas And Tigran Mansurian

2003

Kim Kashkashian - viola
Robyn Schulkowsky - percutie
Tigran Mansurian - pian, voce

Kim Kashkashian brings Armenia’s leading contemporary composer to ECM New Series in a programme that also explores the roots of Armenian music. Compositions by Tigran Mansurian for viola and percussion, played by Kashkashian and Robyn Schulkowsky, receive their premiere recordings here, and frame a selection of Mansurian’s arrangements of the music of Komitas. Komitas (1869-1935) is revered by Armenians as his nation’s most brilliant songwriter. He was also more than this. Composer, priest, philosopher, poet, ethnomusicologist, collector of folk songs, writer of sacred and secular music that bridged the old and the new ... The fine line that connects the melodic character of the most ancient Armenian music with the works of contemporary Armenian composers runs through Komitas.In his settings of the Komitas pieces, Mansurian shows us the rich soil from which his own music springs.

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Recommandé par Classica

The bulk of this album comprises Mansurian’s adaptations of 12 of Komitas’s songs, and Mansurian’s love and respect shines from every one of his arrangements. In 1915 the Turkish administration sent Komitas to a prison camp. Released thanks to the intervention of the American ambassador and a distinguished Turkish poet, he was then committed to a psychiatric institution. His library of crucial research into early music was destroyed, but his significance as a link to the genesis of the modern nation and his importance as a re-discoverer of ancient traditions survived. The song arrangements and the two Mansurian compositions bracketing them convincingly and movingly conjure up the lost history.
Mansurian calls his voice “poor”, but what it undoubtedly lacks in accuracy and resonance, his singing makes up for in honest feeling, transcending expectations to create a very real, very affecting beauty. His instrumental arrangements achieve a similar atmosphere, intensified by Kashkashian’s ravishingly lovely, deeply human tone and Schulkowsky’s sensitive percussion playing. If these versions of the Komitas songs don’t bring you to tears, I suggest you book in for an ECG without delay. The Duet, imbued with genuine but clear-eyed sentiment, is a perfect complement to the songs.
Barry Witherden, Gramophone

This ECM disc turns to the music of Armenia, as refracted by the 20th-century folklorist Komitas. The mournful pining of Kim Kashkashian’s viola is the dominant sound here, but it is augmented by piano and percussion. The large Duet for Viola and Percussion by Tigran Mansurian is a contemporary work, but, like its companions on this haunting disc, it is aglow with echoes of a distant but living tradition.
Andrew Clarke, The Independent

This time Kim Kashkashian brings her virtuosity and vitality to a premier work for viola and percussion by Tigran Mansurian, Armenia’s leading contemporary composer. The Mansurian composition, in turn, is framed by Mansurian’s arrangements of the music of Komitas, the Armenian composer, priest, philosopher, poet, ethnomusicologist, collector of folk songs, and writer of sacred and secular music. The result is rich and rewarding. … This music is mystical, reflective, tender, and colored by plaintive eastern European melodies and Kashkashian’s supremely dark and beautiful tone. This remarkable recording makes you wish more string players would break from the pack and venture into this untapped musical realm where the ancient and the modern coexist with such grace. We can appreciate Kashkashian all the more for her willingness to explore the wide world around her and to bring back these gems.
Greg Cahill, Strings