Alexander Knaifel: Amicta Sole

Alexander Knaifel (Composer), Arkady Steinlucht (Conductor), Hermitage State Museum Orchestra (Orchestra), Tatiana Melentieva (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Tatiana Melentieva
• Orchestra: Hermitage State Museum Orchestra
• Conductor: Arkady Steinlucht
• Composer: Alexander Knaifel
• Audio CD (July 26, 2005)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ecm Records
• ASIN: B000786JC8
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #464,170 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Achingly Beautiful, September 6, 2005

By 

Ralph Casciato (Phila, PA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Alexander Knaifel: Amicta Sole (Audio CD)

I have listed to the Amicta Sole scores of times since I purchased this CD. If there is a heaven, this is what it must sound like. I've listened to hundreds of recordings of religious music, mainly renaissance motets and am a big fan of such groups as the Tallis Scholars and The Sixteen. If you like that kind of sound, this will absolutely mesmorize you. The vocals (sporanos) have the clarity of the Tallis Scholars but are slightly more rounded out (i.e. not as thin as the Scholars, as great as they are, can be). I have read a review of this recording that referred to soprano voices calling out to you through a tunnel of light. The voices hover, intertwine...you want it to never end. Hard to listen to without weeping, it is that beautiful.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "O the glory...", November 29, 2006

By 

Christopher Culver - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Alexander Knaifel: Amicta Sole (Audio CD)

ECM has released several recordings of pieces by Russian composer Alexander Knaifel, and here we have two more piece. Like his former Soviet compatriots Sofia Gubaidulina and Arvo Part, Knaifel set off on an overtly Orthodox path in his mature career, but his path is highly individual.

"Amicta Sole" for soprano, boy's choir soloists & chamber orchestra (1995) is based on the passage from Revelation about the "great sign in Heaven, a woman clothed with the Sun". The soloist and choir floats slowly and quietly over pianissimo instruments, with no changes in dynamic or tempo for the entire 30-minute length. An orchestra is indeed present, but polyphony rarely involves more than two or three instruments at a time, and the music is mainly located in the high treble range. Harmonies are very triadic, but strings playing harmonics give a ghostly tinge to it all. It is easy to see why Knaifel's music won over ECM founder and record producer Manfred Eicher, as Knaifel exploits hall acoustics to tremendous effect.

Alexander Knaifel had in fact planned to be a cellist before nerve inflammation lead him to composition instead, and studied with Mstislav Rostropovich in the early 1960s. "Psalm 51" for solo cello (1996) was written for Rostropovich, who performs here. The programmatic basis of purely instrumental works is generally remote from the actual sound, but Knaifel was insistent that the performer play every note as if articulating a syllable of this most powerful psalm. This is a work of great beauty.

While there is no significant analysis of the music, a flaw common to most ECM discs, the liner notes do include a fine biography of Knaifel and the Biblical texts which inspired the works.

The first time I heard this disc, I didn't get it and was about to write Knaifel off as just another former-Soviet mystic composer (like Part, Vask, or Kancheli). Listening to the pieces on a good stereo, however, revealed a breathtaking sonic landscape. I have to be in the right mood to lose myself in this music, but it contains an individual voice and lovely effects. I think that the earlier ECM release Svete Tikhiy might be a better introduction to Knaifel, as it contains not only contemplation but also shows his ambiguous relationship with 20th century modernism, but all in all this is a worthy disc to pick up next.