Here is a natural and effective coupling of spiritual-minimalist pieces from the Baltic and the Balkans; and how good it is to see this music at last on a major label with a top-flight international orchestra.
The benefits are clear in Kancheli’s Third Symphony, with its extreme contrasts of solo vocal keening and tutti Stravinskian outbursts. Here the spaciousness of EMI’s recording, made in Watford Town Hall, and the refinement of the LPO’s playing are clear gains over the rival Georgian performance (which comes with the added drawback of having been transferred a whole tone too high by the original Melodiya team). The mesmeric folk-derived lament which punctuates the structure was sung on the earlier recording by Rustavi choir-member Gamlet Gonashvili, for whose unearthly tenor Kancheli conceived it.
Eagerly anticipated album by Georgia’s Giya Kancheli (“the most important composer to have emerged from the former Soviet Union since the death of Shostakovich.” – Time Magazine), released in the year of his 70th birthday. This disc features one of Kancheli’s most ardent champions, the great violinist Gidon Kremer., who plays in duo with his old comrade, Russian pianist Oleg Maisenberg on the 26 minute 'Time… and again”, and leads the Kremerata Baltica on “V & V” for violin, taped voice, and string orchestra.
The pianist George Vatchnadze was born in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi but now lives and works in Chicago as Professor of Piano at DePaul University School of Music, having studied with several renowned artists from his homeland such as Alexander Toradze. As winner of prestigious competitions including the Gina Bachauer Competition in 1994, he has given concerts across Europe and the US with the likes of Valery Gergiev and Gianandrea Noseda. For this album he has gathered together 33 short pieces drawn from the huge oeuvre of film music composed by the greatest Georgian composer of our time, Giya Kancheli.
This powerful record brings together two of the most seminal works for viola and orchestra of the twentieth century. Although these pieces are as different as they are similar, together they form a distinct balance of sentiment and execution.
Giya Kancheli possesses one of music's unmistakable voices. It speaks softly of sorrow, loss, solitude and transcendence. Most of his works are in a mode of lamentation, and many are dedicated to departed friends, as is 'Lament (Music of mourning in memory of Luigi Nono).