Giya KANCHELI (1935-2019)
The Legacy
Symphony No. 1 (1967) [26:29]
Symphony No. 2 "Chants" (1970) [31:47]
Symphony No. 3 (1973) [30:09]
Symphony No. 4 "To the Memory of Michelangelo" (1974) [25:17]
Symphony No. 5 "To the Memory of My Parents" (1977) [29:37]
Symphony No. 6 (1978–1980) [35:26]
Symphony No. 7 "Epilogue" (1986 rev. 1992) [32:58]
Light Sorrow, music for orchestra, boys' choir and two boy sopranos (for the 40th anniversary of the victory over fascism) (1984) [32:07]
Mourned by the Wind (Vom Winde beweint), liturgy for viola (or cello) and orchestra (1989) [41:19]
Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra/Djansug Kakhidze
Rec. 1994-5, Kakhidze Center for Music, Tbilisi, Georgia
CUGATE CLASSICS CGC050 [5CDs: 283:28]
Giya Kancheli was one of the group of composers who grew up under the Soviet Union, which also included the Estonian Arvo Pârt and the Ukrainian Valentin Silvestrov. They each discovered European modernism and thereafter went their own way. Kancheli himself was born in Tbilisi in Georgia and lived there until the breakup of the Soviet Union, after which he went to Berlin, then to Antwerp, where he settled. In his own country he earned his living for a number of years in charge of theatre music and also writing for films. After he moved to the West, his fame was such that he could support himself through composition, and his work was taken up by many famous names.
His compositions fall into two groups: in Georgia his chief achievements were his cycle of seven symphonies, the two other concertante works included here and also an opera, Music for the Living, so far unrecorded. In the West he wrote no more symphonies but preferred smaller forms, often including voices. These later works have divided opinions: they have attracted a cult following among some, but others have considered them a decline after the symphonies.
The first two symphonies seem, having heard the later ones, to be preparatory works. The first symphony is the work which made Kancheli’s reputation. It is in two movements, the first loud and raucous and the second quiet. The first movement features a march rather in the Shostakovich manner while the plaintive and wistful second nods in the direction of a set of variations. It is an impressive work, even if not secure in its idiom.
The second symphony, subtitled Chants, takes its name from the first publication in Georgia since the revolution of some church chants. Chant was important to Kancheli. This work is listed as being in a single movement though in fact there are three, which play continuously, in the slow-quick-slow model. The actual chant theme appears a few minutes in. The middle movement is loud and dissonant, with a good deal of work for the brass.
The next four symphonies seem to me to constitute the core of Kancheli’s symphonic achievement. In them his idiom is completely assured. He has broken with the developmental tradition which was so firmly established by Beethoven. Instead, blocks of sound of quite different character succeed one another and occasionally return, without anything suggesting thematic development. The tempo is generally slow and the works all last about half an hour. They are nominally in one movement each, though some have subdivisions. There is also a considerable use of silence and of bells. In a way, this is like Messiaen, though without the warmth which Messiaen derived from his religious faith and from his fascination with birdsong. They tend to feature highly atmospheric floating wisps of sound occasionally interrupted by savage outbursts. It is difficult to capture the hypnotic effect of this idiom, which is not really like anything else, although one occasionally one hears echoes, say of Stravinsky or Shostakovich. It is intense and impressive but also narrow.
The third symphony is haunting and atmospheric, beginning and ending with the sound of a human voice. There is also the strange sound of the string players fingering their fingerboards without playing – a disembodied, unearthly effect. Brass passages are at first abrupt, then more like a chorale. The work was inspired by a funeral and fragments of chants occasionally appear.
The fourth symphony is more monumental. Perhaps this is connected with the dedication ‘To the Memory of Michelangelo.’ I mentioned Messiaen, and the world of his Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum is not far away. This symphony builds up slowly towards a thunderous climax about a third of the way through after which it slowly retreats. A three note motif, first heard on bells, is prominent.
The fifth symphony is subtitled ‘To the Memory of my Parents’ and there is a theme of childhood which runs throughout, expressed by fragmentary passages played on the harpsichord suggestive of children’s faltering attempts at practising the piano. These are interrupted by forceful passages for the full orchestra, but the theme of childhood gradually grows in confidence and volume. The work rises to a lurching march which is suddenly cut off for a serene and quiet ending.
These three works are all excellent but the sixth is the best of all of them. This is in four movements which play continuously. After a Prelude featuring a solo viola there is a movement titled Calmo which is then broken into by the Scherzo, which is forceful. However, the loud and forceful passages are generally brief and start and stop suddenly. The finale is marked Marcatissimo and has a pulverizing force but it is followed by a long slow coda.
The seventh symphony is subtitled Epilogue because the composer knew at the time that this would be his last symphony. Again, we have powerful passages, as at the opening, quiet and mournful passages, and a good deal of other material, including at one -point a tragic theme built up over a regular pulse and at another a slow waltz. However, I have to say that this is much less impressive than the earlier symphonies: the material seem just too heterogeneous to be integrated and, despite the ferocity of some of it, there is a kind of softness, even sentimentality, which I do not find in the earlier works.
Light Sorrow takes its title from a poem by Goethe – though actually Bright Sorrow, which has been used on some recordings is both a closer translation of the German and better English. This was commissioned to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the end of the World War II in Europe, for performance in Leipzig, then in East Germany. Clearly something showy would have been inappropriate. Kancheli dedicated his work to children, war victims, irrespective of nationality. The first performance was met with a stunned silence and helped to build Kancheli’s wider reputation. In it we find a return to the form which had been somewhat lost in the seventh symphony. It opens very quietly and then a soloist enters with a passage strongly reminiscent of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. There are occasionally powerful interruptions by the full orchestra, as in the symphonies, contrasted with slow meditative passages. The words are passages of poems by Goethe, Pushkin, Shakespeare and the Georgian poet Galaktion Tabidze. (Texts in English, and, for the Goethe, German as well, are provided.) The work is very moving.
Mourned by the wind is a kind of companion piece to Light Sorrow and also commemorates a death, in this case not of a group but of an individual, the musicologist Givi Odrzhonikidze, who was an authority on Shostakovich and also a good friend of Kancheli. The structure is somewhat similar to that of its companion, though this time the soloist is a viola, though its part is in no way like that of a concerto. The orchestra contains some unusual instruments, such as a spinet and a bass guitar. I find this slightly less impressive than Light Sorrow, but it is still a fine work.
The performances, under Kancheli’s long-time collaborator the conductor Djansug Kakhidze, are authoritative. Kakhidze has been described at the Georgian Karajan, but that refers to his importance in Georgian musical life, not to his conducting style, which is in the forthright tradition we associate with Russian conductors such as Mravinsky and Svetlanov. He is also capable of great delicacy, needed in the meditative passages which constitute the bulk of the works. The recordings are described as remastered and I first wondered whether this had been from the older versions which some readers will know from their Olympia issues. Cugate kindly informed me that they were all remastered from digital recordings made in the 1990s, using the then new Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra, which Kakhidze had formed in 1993. They were first issued on the Beaux label. Certainly they all sound splendid. As the recording dates are not given in the booklets, I provide them here:
Symphonies, 1, 2 and 3: 29 November 1995
Symphonies 4 & 5: 16 July 1995
Symphonies 6 & 7: 25 May 1994
Light Sorrow: 21 November 1994
Mourned by the wind: 21 November 1994
The soloists are not credited, but I was informed that they were all members of the orchestra, apart from Yuri Bashmet, who plays the solo viola in Mourned by the wind. The booklets give useful information about the works but read as if they were written some time ago – Kakhidze is referred to as if still alive, though he died in 2002.
The five discs are available separately in four issues (symphonies 3 to 5 are in a slimline double case). The complete set fits tightly into a cardboard case. Many people have been wanting a complete set of Kancheli’s symphonies. Now here they are.
Stephen Barber
