CD ECM Records Oleg Malov, Keller Quartett, Tatiana Melentieva - Alexander Knaifel: Svete Tikhiy

2006

Janos Pilz - vioara
Zoltan Gal - viola
Judit Szabo - violoncel
Tatiana Melentieva - soprana
Andrei Siegle - sampler
Keller Quartett
Oleg Malov - pian

Alexander Knaifel
- In Air Clean And Unseen ( For Piano And String Quartett ) (1994)
- Svete Tikhiy ( O Gladsome Light ) - The Song Of The Most Holy Theotokos (1991)

ECM's documentation of outstanding music from the former Soviet Union continues with Svete Tikhiy, the first of several albums from the Uzbekistan-born and St Petersburg-based composer, Alexander Knaifel. This recording - featuring the distinguished Keller Quartett with pianist Oleg Malov, and the voice of Tatiana Melentieva processed by Andrei Siegle - brings together important new developments and impulses in Knaifel's music. The Keller Quartet play with the conviction and imagination they also brought to their prize-winning and critically acclaimed New Series recordings of the string music of György Kurtág ('Musik für Streichinstrumente') and Bach's 'Die Kunst der Fuge'.

Choc, Le Monde de la Musique

If I were a betting man, I’d use my money to back the success of an ECM disc of music by the Russian composer Alexander Knaifel – the Piano Quintet „In Air Clear and Unseen“ but more particularly a work for soprano and sampler, “Svete Tikhiy”. It’s music that’s steeped in the spirit of the Russian Orthodox liturgy … wonderfully evocative… Simplicity itself, but ethereal and haunting and I’d say a potential popular catch with a large public.
Rob Cowan, BBC Radio 3