Availability Various

Dmitry Klyuchevskiy (b. 1973)
Music for Headphone Listening
rec. 2022
Reviewed as a streamed recording
Private Release [57]

I suspect this might be a first: a composer who has made the move to music from fashion. Of course, the world of rock music is littered with former art students but I am not aware of anyone going to classical direct from fashion even if some have trodden a path from art college to rocker to symphonist. It is even rarer for the composer in question to be largely self-taught. That Russian composer, Dmitry Klyuchevskiy is such a composer is, in itself, an encouraging sign of where classical music might be moving. As I have said repeatedly in the pages of MusicWeb International, contrary to all the jeremiads of those outside it, the world of contemporary classical is in rude health even if sometimes it can be hard to tell what exactly constitutes contemporary classical music any more so protean has it become.

Klyuchevskiy has a lively and diverse musical imagination and this album could be seen as him setting out his stall to demonstrate his range as a musician. The fact that it is constructed of short tracks and contains a lot of production techniques closer to rock music than classical perhaps also reflects a sensible avoidance of the usual pitfall for autodidact composers – namely, the overextended score such as a symphony or an opera. The worlds of jazz, rock and classical have been drawing closer together for some time now and this is an album that sits firmly in that middle space without ever getting close to the egregious nonsense that is crossover. If Klyuchevskiy’s music fits into any recognisable genre, it is probably that of the contemporary soundtrack. There is little in the way of musical argument in such relatively brief pieces so they form a kind of suite of musical moods.

The composer himself is responsible for all the performances that are recorded on this album, reflecting a shift Klyuchevskiy notes in the way composers now work, away from the usual limitations of score and performance to something serious rock musicians have been familiar with since Revolver or Sgt Pepper. The compositional process and the act of performance merged, first in the studio, and now, more often, wherever the composer has their laptop. Digitally sampled or even digitally produced sounds are no longer inferior substitutes but almost limitlessly malleable, the limit only being set by the imagination of the composer. It has taken classical music a surprisingly long time to catch up with the possibilities of this technology with even advanced centres such as IRCAM tending to focus on the more complex if somewhat esoteric side of electronic music which has given birth to wonderful things like spectral music.

Klyuchevskiy’s music is much more traditional than anything emerging out of IRCAM and his influences are clearly audible. That said over the course of the recording a recognisable voice does emerge out of those influences. It isn’t a particularly Russian sounding voice in the way that someone like Lera Auerbach’s is. If I were to try and sum it up I would call it a voice of wide eyed wonder but also one with a decided playful side to it.

Like many composers today, Klyuchevskiy shows signs of attempting to absorb and move past the influence of minimalism. The fingerprints of minimalism are here but this is not minimalist music. For starters, it is much too warm hearted.

This album is a most enjoyable calling card for a naturally gifted musician. His obvious next port of call would seem to be soundtrack work and I hope he gets the chance to do so. The penultimate track appears to be a track for an imaginary Hollywood film. Perhaps he may move in a different direction- toward more traditional large form composition. A symphony written and recorded on a laptop would be a tantalising thought and so long as Klyuchevskiy doesn’t lose his puckish lightness of touch in the process I for one would love to hear it.

David McDade