Giya KANCHELI (b. 1933)
Magnum Ignotum
Simi
Mstislav Rostropovich (cello)
Koninkijk Filharmonisch Orkest van Vlaadderen/Jansug Kakhidze
ECM New Series 289 462
713-2
[50.38]
Crotchet
AmazonUK
AmazonUS
Kancheli's best music is sad, dramatic, and intermittently terrifying. The
piece Simi, which has the gloomy subtitle "joyless thoughts
for violoncello and orchestra," admirably accomplishes these moods. Its opening
adagio begins by suggesting a disquieting threat on the cello. Soon Mstislav
Rostropovich's cello rides on exquisite rails of tension, as the thematically
clotted adagio continues to tweak the listener's sense of dread. A crescendo
rises and threatens to explode, but vanishes, leaving all but a ripple of
sound. But there is no peace as fff chords crash suddenly, jolting
and thrilling the ears. Such eruptions are standard in Kancheli's musical
arsenal; in this piece, they work splendidly. Unaccountably, like tragic
accidents, they are over quickly. Conductor Jansung Kakhidze's Koninkijk
Filharmonisch Orkest van Vlaadderen lurks in the background, providing a
dark tone color accompanying the doleful cello. Like Webern's music, sometimes
small tone rows carry the piece, subtly inferring emotional stress rather
than plunging the listener into them (as Mahler often does). Later in the
piece, other orchestral eruptions take place, each time more intense and
severe. Simi grabs the listener by the lapels like a social reformer
shouting "can't you see what's happening?" There are other ingenious effects
in this piece, like Kancheli's skilful balancing of percussive effects with
rests, which heightens the disquiet in this piece. The piece ends as it began,
a poem of sorrow and regret that dissolves diminuendo, diluted like
a homeopathic remedy down to ppp. This disturbing piece is difficult
to ignore.
I wish I could summon the same enthusiasm for Magnum Ignotum ("the
Great Forgiving"). It begins adagio, and soon an odd pallor settles
over the piece. A taped voice half-chants Matthew 1:18-25 (This biblical
citation recounts the angel's message to Joseph that Mary is pregnant and
the man's subsequent reaction.) This four-minute segment sets a discomforting
mood. Not dramatically spoken like the reading from Ezekiel 37:1-10 Penderecki
uses in his Seventh Symphony, the segment is monotonous - it is also tonally
and thematically irrelevant. Kancheli places the tape player so far back
it's difficult to tell if the language is Latin or Georgian. Does he think
by injecting religion into a piece it inures it from criticism? The middle
segment is unremarkable, drifting on a placid chromatic sea until interrupted
by a tantalizingly short and undocumented Gurian song. The piece concludes
with a passage from the Georgian hymn Upalo Ghmerto - lovely but also
undocumented - and clanging bells. While well played by the Koninkijk
Filharmonisch Orkest van Vlaadderen orchestra, Magnum Ignotum ultimately
fails. It is a noble attempt at what the composer calls "a formally enigmatic,
mysteriously beautiful piece," but it lacks direction and sustained mood.
Peter Bates
