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.
Hayren - Music of Komitas and Tigran Mansurian
Kim Kashkashian, Robyn Schulkowsky, Tigran Mansurian
- 1Havik (1998)
04:52 - 2Garun a
03:22 - 3Krunk
02:23 - 4Chinar es
02:20 - 5Krunk
02:28 - 6Hov arek
02:41 - 7Hoy, Nazan
02:29 - 8Krunk
02:19 - 9Tsirani tsar
03:08 - 10Oror
02:33 - 11Antuni
05:51 - 12Oror
01:30 - 13Duet for viola and percussion (1998)
18:22
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
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
Retrouvailles discrètes. Presque secrètes. Kim Kashkashian, altiste de braise, américaine de passeport et arménienne de sang, revient à ses terres. Avec la douceur d'une fée, elle donne vie à une pièce composée pour elle par son compatriote Tigran Mansurian. Elle y avance avec la force tranquille de grands mouvements lents, guidée par des percussions qui sont autant de bornes lumineuses sur le trajet du retour aux sources. ...Tigran et Kim, comme sans doute des milliers d'Arméniens de la diaspora, ont dans l'oreille les mêmes chansons, et des harmonies sur lesquelles leurs voix se réfugient chaque fois qu'ils fredonnent par inadvertance. Leur petite musique de nuit, leur "Frère Jacques" à eux, s'appelle Komitas. Voilà le troisième musicien de cette histoire gigogne.Il est le vieux sage qu'il fallait retrouver, après les péripéties, les épreuves historiques et les fausses pistes. Et ces retrouvailles-là clouent sur place, même lorsqu'on y assiste en touriste parachuté. Dans des mélodies susurrées par l'archet, d'autres chantonnées sans dessein spectaculaire par Tigran Mansurian lui-même, on rencontre un père fondateur. Et dans la voix de Mansurian, dont on ne sait plus s'il chante Komitas ou s'il l'incarne, s'entend une vieille douleur, qui exige ses repères biographiques. ...Il adapte cette matière stratifiée pour voix de pauvre, percussion et nappe graineuse d'alto. Voix tout sauf athlétique, Tigran Mansurian joue d'un timbre vacillant, déséquilibré, épuisé, vrai comme une parabole. Dans dix petites pièces d'à peine trois minute, il peint Komitas en mystique, en chaman aimanté par l'Asie, en papillon dansant, en Zorba caucasien dans le superbe "Iloy, Nazan". Comme on joue sur un piano élémentaire les petites fugues hallucinées d'un échappé d'asile.
Florence Gaillard, Le Temps
Armenien, lange ein ähnliches Phantom- und Sehnsuchtsland wie Israel, unsichtbar auf den Landkarten, doch in den Herzen der in alle Welt Zerstreuten. Kim Kashkashian und dem ECM-Editor Manfred Eicher geht es indes nicht um konservatorische Folklore-Präsentation, sondern um spannungsvolle Konfrontationen von Alt und Neu, Fern und Nah. Musikalisches Erbe nicht als statischer Besitz, vielmehr als Verwandlungspotential. So werden einige Lieder des traditionellen armenischen Komponisten Komitas, von dem zwei Generationen jüngeren Kollegen Tigran Mansurian mit ungeschulter Stimme mehr zitiert als vorgetragen; der dabei entstehende Ausdruck von Verfremdung bekommt zugleich etwas spontan Eindringliches. Neben Komitas' miniaturhaften Ikonen breiten sich zwei ethnomusikalisch inspirierte, modern imprägnierte Werke von Mansurian stärker aus. Die Schlagzeugerin Robin Schulkowsky ist da klangsensible Partnerin von Kim Kashkashian. ... Hayren - das uns unbekannte Zauberwort ist in Armenien geläufig als poetisches Signum eines eng mit der Sprachmelodie und dem Lebensgefühl verknüpften Stils des zwischen Orient und Okzident lebenden Kaukasusvolkes. Diese Exkursion kann klarstellen, dass Entlegenes und Vergangenes ins Zentrum gerückt zu werden vermag: vermöge einer künstlerischen Vision und Energie, die Grenzen überspringen und Sprachbarrieren durch die Unmittelbarkeit der klingenden Vergegenwärtigung.
Hansklaus Jungheinrich, Frankfurter Rundschau
Ausgangspunkt des ambitionierten Projekts der Bratscherin Kim Kashkashian und des Komponisten Tigran Mansurian sind Lieder des armenischen Philosophen und Poeten Komitas. In Mansurians Bearbeitung werden sie als Verbindung von altarmenischen Volksweisen und zeitgenössischen Kompositionstechniken in die Gegenwart geholt und dort adäquat umgesetzt. In unterschiedlichen Besetzungen für Bratsche, Klavier, Gesang oder Schlagzeug erschließt sich dem Hörer eine geradezu spirituelle Klangwelt von großer Suggestionskraft. Flirrend, herb-schön und voller elementarer Motorik ist auch Mansurians "Duet for Viola and Percussion". Kim Kashkashian und Robyn Schulkowsky interpretieren dieses Stück des wohl wichtigsten armenischen Komponisten unserer Zeit mit bezwingender Intensität.
Dagmar Zurek, Financial Times Deutschland
Die Kraft kommt aus der Melancholie, aus der Heimatlosigkeit, aus dem Entschluss weiterzugehen und die Schönheit zu suchen. Irische Musik lebt aus dieser traurigen Stärke, Klezmer aus dieser betrübten Fröhlichkeit. Als seien es die Vertriebenen und Vereinzelten, die nur in der Musik ihre Heimat spüren könnten. Die Lieder und Kompositionen von zwei Armeniern besitzen diesen Klang, zum einen des Musikethnologen und Priesters Komitas sowie des 1939 in Beirut geborenen Lehrers und Komponisten Tigran Mansurian, in Yerevan lebend. Eine dritte musikalische Stimme tritt dazu, die Bratsche von Kim Kashkashian, ferner die Perkussionsinstrumente der amerikanischen Klangwerkerin Robyn Schulkowsky - und eine der größten kleinen Produktionen der letzten Zeit ist vollzählig, Hayren - Music of Komitas and Tigran Mansurian. ... Tigran Mansurian und Kim Kashkashian streichen, singen und beschwören die Lieder jenes Komitas Vardapet, der 1915 von den Türken verhaftet und in die Depression geschickt wurde, Stücke zwischen der Melodiefülle von Volksliedern und der Innigkeit von Kirchenhymnen. Nicht der Hörer nimmt hier die Musik auf, sondern die Musik ihn.
Konrad Heidkamp, Die Zeit
Tigran Mansurian’s composition “Nostalgia” was recently hailed as a highlight of Alexei Lubimov’s recital disc Der Bote. Now an important new recording from 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 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. Analogies can be drawn also with Kashkashian’s last disc, the widely acclaimed “Voci”, on which Berio’s music was set alongside the folksongs that inspired it. In exploring Komitas, American-Armenian violist Kashkashian is also contacting her own roots. Kashkashian and Mansurian understand each other perfectly here. When they first met, the music of Komitas proved a common bond. “The necessity to live with our traditional melodies was already apparent to both of us,” says Mansurian, “and I understood that these pieces belong as much to Kim as they do to Komitas.”
The Mansurian/Kashkashian association was further strengthened by an “Armenian Night” realized with the help of Manfred Eicher, at the 1999 Bergen International Music Festival, in which Kashkashian, Robyn Schulkowsky, and Jan Garbarek participated, along with the Yerevan Chamber Choir and leading Armenian soloists. During the concert some of Mansurian’s works were played for the first time, including the Duet for Viola and Percussion, and “Havik”. Mansurian: “The poetical text and the melody of this song were written by the great 10th century Armenian mystic Grigor Narekatsi.” An early 20th century recording of Komitas singing this song exists, and it inspired Mansurian’s composition, in which he “tried to retain all the nuances of Komitasian performance.”
The album’s title, Hayren alludes to the “poetical style most beloved by Armenians, which has a tradition of centuries.” Mansurian continues, ‘Hayren’ is dense with the phonetics and intonation of our language, and the Armenian landscape and aspects of Armenian worldview and sentiment are also present.”
The Kim Kashkashian/Robyn Schulkowsky duo is an enduring and original chamber music group, first brought together by producer Eicher and now in its 14th year of existence. A number of composers have now written work specifically for its unorthodox instrumentation. Mansurian himself, having composed for the duo, also makes his own unique contribution as a performer on Hayren, both as pianist and vocalist in his own arrangements of the Komitas songs. As he makes clear in his liner notes, he is not a “singer” in the accepted sense but it is precisely the heartfelt “artlessness” of his delivery that draws out the charm of the material, that returns it to “folk music”, in the best sense.
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. Analogies can be drawn also with Kashkashian’s last disc, the widely acclaimed “Voci”, on which Berio’s music was set alongside the folksongs that inspired it. In exploring Komitas, American-Armenian violist Kashkashian is also contacting her own roots. Kashkashian and Mansurian understand each other perfectly here. When they first met, the music of Komitas proved a common bond. “The necessity to live with our traditional melodies was already apparent to both of us,” says Mansurian, “and I understood that these pieces belong as much to Kim as they do to Komitas.”
The Mansurian/Kashkashian association was further strengthened by an “Armenian Night” realized with the help of Manfred Eicher, at the 1999 Bergen International Music Festival, in which Kashkashian, Robyn Schulkowsky, and Jan Garbarek participated, along with the Yerevan Chamber Choir and leading Armenian soloists. During the concert some of Mansurian’s works were played for the first time, including the Duet for Viola and Percussion, and “Havik”. Mansurian: “The poetical text and the melody of this song were written by the great 10th century Armenian mystic Grigor Narekatsi.” An early 20th century recording of Komitas singing this song exists, and it inspired Mansurian’s composition, in which he “tried to retain all the nuances of Komitasian performance.”
The album’s title, Hayren alludes to the “poetical style most beloved by Armenians, which has a tradition of centuries.” Mansurian continues, ‘Hayren’ is dense with the phonetics and intonation of our language, and the Armenian landscape and aspects of Armenian worldview and sentiment are also present.”
The Kim Kashkashian/Robyn Schulkowsky duo is an enduring and original chamber music group, first brought together by producer Eicher and now in its 14th year of existence. A number of composers have now written work specifically for its unorthodox instrumentation. Mansurian himself, having composed for the duo, also makes his own unique contribution as a performer on Hayren, both as pianist and vocalist in his own arrangements of the Komitas songs. As he makes clear in his liner notes, he is not a “singer” in the accepted sense but it is precisely the heartfelt “artlessness” of his delivery that draws out the charm of the material, that returns it to “folk music”, in the best sense.
