Customer Reviews

Kancheli: Styx, Gubaidulina: Viola Concerto

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"With Great Passion" were the words that came to mind when I first heard this recent masterpiece by Kancheli performed by the great Russian violist Yuri Bashmet. The work was written for and with him in mind and as such, it is loaded with some of the most romantic music ever written for viola. The viola is the tour guide for this fantastic trip down/across the river between life and death, or perhaps, it is the river itself. The veiled sound of the instrument meanders lyrically in and out of the passionate dynamics displayed by the orchestra and mixed choir. Very poetic. The thirty-five minute track ebbs and flows seamlessly down its mystical course as it ends all too quickly, though surprisingly. I would compare the style of the music to the great romantic works at the turn of the nineteenth century (Mahler, Strauss) but there truly is a timeless, lamenting quality to this beautiful work.
Also written for Bashmet, the Gubaibulina Viola Concerto is passionate and mournful as well, yet in a more sparse and technical way. The nuiance of the viola is explored in a more contemporary fashion and it took me a few listens to fully appreciate this modern concerto. Patience does pay off and if you have ever heard Offertorium (her Violin Concerto), this makes a great companion piece.
Both the DG sound production and performance will blow you away. The art and packaging is a bonus as well. Please give us more Yuri DG!!

Kancheli's "Styx" -- 3 stars) This 1999 composition by Kancheli has the tonality of a late Romantic work, but a postmodern structure. Rather than a smoothly flowing river, it strikes me as more like a "scary" amusement park ride, one of them where you travel through some setting in the dark and there's a monster or a splash of water behind every turn. In "Styx" these are the loud punctuations from orchestra and chorus. In between are very quiet, lyrical passages featuring Bashmet's viola. It's not a great vehicle for him, though, due to these extreme dynamics -- if you turn the volume up enough to hear him clearly, you'll damage your ears with each blast. I understand that this "eruption" device is typical of Kancheli -- curious that it is also used by post-rock bands like Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor. I find it superficial and unaffecting.

Gubaidulina's "Concerto for Viola and Orchestra" -- 5 stars) This piece, from 1996, is full of anguish, grandeur, complex tonality and structural development, and virtuoso passages which Bashmet plays with the utmost power and beauty. The only Gubaidulina I had heard previously were some of her string quartets (by Kronos and Arditti) -- this concerto confirms for me that she is an outstanding composer of the 20th century! Gubaidulina and Kancheli can also be found together on the Kronos Quartet album from 1994, "Night Prayers," and there as here, I am more impressed by Gubaidulina.

The performances by Yuri Bashmet on viola, conductor Valery Gergiev, the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, and the St. Petersburg Chamber Choir are superb. DG's packaging is also gorgeous -- their 20/21 series is beginning to build some real depth.

Styx is a great piece, written by the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli in 1999. It is written for Viola, Choir, and Orchestra, and is dedicated to Yuri Bashmet. Bashmet is the world's greatest Violist alive today, and he performs this work excellently on this recording. The music is very beautiful, and along with Simi and Mourned By The Wind, is serving as my introduction to Kancheli's music. There is a serious flaw in the piece, and that is that it is designed for performance in a concert hall, not for playing on your CD player. It switches between very loud and extremely quiet sections. The quiet sections make up most of the piece, but they are very hard to hear without turning the volume up high, but you'll pay when the loud sections very suddenly pop in, often for only a few seconds. I love his use of dynamics, but it is not well suited to a CD player. I love listening to this piece despite that, but I am unable to listen to it if there is background noise around because it will drown out the beautiful quiet parts. The last two minutes are especially quiet, and then the finishing chord comes out of nowhere very very loud. Yes I am "spoiling" the surprise of it for you, but it will still catch you off guard despite my warning.

As for the Orchestra, Choir, and the soloist, they all do an excellent job. The choir fills its role quite well, and does not try to dominate the music, and is content to serve as backup for Bashmet's playing. Whatever you do, DO NOT buy a recording of this piece with anyone other than Bashmet performing it.

Gubaidulina's concerto for Viola was also written specifically for Bashmet. This piece gives the performer a lot of leeway in choosing the tempo and even sometimes the pitch as well. It is often slow moving, allowing Bashmet's beautiful playing to shine. This piece showcases Bashmet's playing a lot more than Kancheli's. It has a lot of quieter parts at the start with unaccompanied or sparsely accompanied Viola, but these parts are still audible, unlike many parts in Kancheli's piece. It has plenty of space for solo Viola, possibly too much time, but the climax punctuated by the percussion is exciting. And if you appreciate Bashmet's abilities on Viola, you'll appreciate the first 20 minutes of the piece.

Gubaidulina's piece is beautiful, although not as beautiful as Kancheli's. It does not have the extreme quietness problems Kancheli's piece does. Both pieces are quite enjoyable, and I was split between giving this 4 or 5 stars. I really enjoy this CD, and it is one of the better CDs I have. I decided upon 4 stars because of the difficulty of listening to the first piece. I strongly recommend this CD.

This Deutsche Grammaphon disc--part of its "20/21" series of contemporary music--contains two works written especially for the viola virtuoso Yuri Bashmet. The first is Giya Kancheli's "Styx (for viola, mixed choir, and orchestra)" and the second Sofia Gubaidulina's "Concerto for viola and orchestra."

I bought the disc as a fan of Gubaidulina, but Kancheli's "Styx" was a pleasant surprise. It is an ethereal choral work of quiet lulls and brief exultations. Its themes appears to be death, what it takes away and what it leaves behind, and time. The names of Kancheli's deceased friends Alfred Schnittke and Avet Terterian figure prominently towards the end. The viola in this piece is meant to symbolise the river Styx itself, carrying along all that is past to a tranquil end. The recording is not, however, ideal. There is some background noise from time to time; apparently this is a live concert recording. The engineers have tried to hide the audience's applause, but the result sounds freakish and alien. The disc is also nearly unaudible in some places, and turning the volume high enough to perceive the quiet parts will have unfortunate consequences during the louder portions. The problem is that much of the work is performed pianissimo, and while it might have worked fine in the concert hall, it doesn't work out well in recording.

Gubaidulina's "Viola Concerto" is a thrilling work. It begins as a soft and pensive elaboration on the "DSCH" motif of her inspiration Dmitri Shostakovich interspersed with some lush layers of sound somewhat reminiscent of Bartok. About halfway through the piece, however, it is transformed into a dramatic and suspenseful exposition of percussion. The concerto is clearly a step in the evolution from Gubaidulina's "The Canticle of the Sun of St. Francis of Assisi", with its glittering chimes and light, to her "St. John Passion" and its thundering drums. Those two compositions are among the greatest works of Christian piety of our time, and this concerto follows not very far behind. Highly recommended listening.

Performances are top-notch. The Choir of the Mariinsky Theatre gives an excellent performance in "Styx", respecting the nebulous nature of the text and understanding that it must stay out of the viola's way. Valery Gergiev's sensitivity is commendable. His conducting of Gubaidulina's Viola Concerto is, as is to be expected from his other recordings of Gubaidulina's work, flawless. And what of Yuri Bashmet himself? His playing was very moving, and helps explain why so may critics use phrases like "finest violist of our time". There is nowhere on this disc where he seems less than perfectly sure of how to tackle the piece.

The liner notes are excellent, as they have been for most of DG's 20/21 series. It has descriptions of the two pieces, an interview with Bashmet, profiles of Bashmet and Gergeiv, and finally the text of "Styx". Gubaidulina seems to get little attention here, however, making me suspect that her Viola Concerto was added to the disc just to fill it out since "Styx" is relatively short.

This disc would probably make a poor introduction to Gubaidulina. Try her fine "Offertorium" disc on DG (in the same series) if you've never heard her work before, or maybe her JOHANNES-PASSION of 2000, which was also performed by the Orchestra and Choir of the Mariinsky Theatre conducted by Gergiev. I don't know enough of Kancheli's work to make a comparison, but my curiosity is piqued and I will be searching other works by him. All in all, this disc is worth picking up and will not disappoint.

I fear that you will rarely have a chance to hear this wonderful music in a concert hall. There is simply too much work in this, the length (>30 minutes), choir and orchestra, romantic music with very tricky "conductor's traps", etc. But what a great music it is! Bashmet was made for this music, the other performers, including a pianist, are of exceptional quality as well. Go buy it now even if, or especially if, you think you don't like modern classical music!

Kancheli's Styx is an amazingly beautiful piece of music. Sometimes, I just can't believe that someone can actually write something so beautiful. Kancheli is one of the most important composers of our time, and this he has proven in the past with Lament, Simi, a la Duduki (which I wholeheartedly recommend) and re-affirms with Styx.

The Viola work by Gubaidulina is perhaps intelectually and conceptually stimulating, but in fact plain boring. *Soul-less* is the word that describes it best.