A big part of what makes 20th century “classical” music so fascinating – the major part, I’m inclined to think – is not so much the fact that composers were freed from formal constraints as it is the fact that composers commenced really delving into the sounds and modes of their regions’ distinctive folk musics and internalizing them. Bartok and Kodaly are the forebearers here. Especially in eastern Europe and down into the Black and Caspian Sea regions, where Asia and Europe blur, the folk elements combined with the Western instruments to create music infinitely more interesting (to me, at least) than the Austro-German dross of the 19th centuries and before.
The music from Georgia on this mixtape is a case in point. The Caucasus Mountains, which most textbooks regard as the border between Europe and Asia, make up the top third of Georgia, and the folk traditions there go back millennia. Polyphonic singing developed in Georgia centuries before the concept of polyphony was established in western Europe. Non-Western – or really, pre-Western scales – were the building blocks of Georgian music.
All but one piece on this collection come from the time when Georgia was a part of the Soviet Union. All but one of the composers herein attended the Tbilisi Conservatory during the period when Stalin (a Georgian) forbade Soviet composers from employing techniques considered “formalist” (a vague term, meaning essentially “dissonant” or “difficult”), techniques (numbingly) fashionable in Western avant-garde circles. Soviet composers were, however, encouraged to employ elements of regional folk music (even as the state discouraged actual folk ensembles and traditions…) This allowed composers in places like Georgia (and Estonia and Armenia) to work with non-Western (or, pre-Western) scales and melodies, which gave them a lot of freedom; at the same time, composers in such far-flung locales had far less oversight from Moscow.
So it’s no surprise that these regions produced outstanding composers in the Soviet years. I have explored the music of modern Estonia (Mixtape #7), Armenia (#12) and the Caspian Sea region (#19) to some extent; this one represents an attempt to provide an introduction to Georgian music. The music here should resonate with people who love post-field recording Bartok, the vigorous and harsh Shostakovich of the post-Stalin years, and the dark and sardonic ouevre of Schnittke. I think four or five of the composers on this collection deserve to be considered alongside names like those.
Unfortunately, most of these composers are virtually unknown outside Georgia today. Most Western fans of modern-era classical music are familiar with the name if not the work of Giya Kancheli (1935-2019), thanks to high profile recordings on ECM New Series. Sulkhan Tzintsadze (1925-91) is somewhat well known in the West, though for his more ingratiating works around folk themes and not the utterly brilliant string quartets he wrote that go toe-to-toe with Shostakovich’s masterpieces. (I have included Tsintsadze’s 10th (of 12) as the closing piece on this mixtape to prove my point…)
Those two, however, are the tip of the iceberg. Otar Taktakishvili, Sulkhan Nasidze, Nodar Gabunia and Josef Bardanashvili should all be considered major composers, I’d say; unfortunately, all have substantial bodies of work that, if not for Youtube, would never be heard from at all. Taktakishvili (1924-89) is one of those guys semi-famous for a single work, a gentle flute sonata that has been recorded a zillion times but which barely scratches the surface of his genius; he wrote 2 symphonies, 2 violin concertos and 4 piano concertos over a long career. Nasidze (1927-1996), who wrote 7 symphonies, arrived at a place very like Schnittke’s – concurrently – in the ’80s. Gabunia, a concert pianist himself with a number of recordings as a soloist, wrote three brilliant concertos for himself in addition to 3 symphonies; his daughter, Natalia, is a violin virtuoso who slays her dad’s violin concerto. Bardanshshvili (1948- ) is now based in Israel; his music echoes the thorny aspects of his elders.
Natela Svanidze, born in 1926 and still with us (as of today), is a composer I want to learn more about. She wrote a couple symphonies and a bunch of other stuff. All that’s available, aside from a not particularly interesting electronic piece from the ’70s, are a few killer piano pieces on Youtube, pieces which suggest an Ustvolskayan starkness and intensity. And I’m not saying that because she’s a woman. Watch “Drops of Blood from the Heart” on Youtube. Mas!
20th century Georgian composers contributed a ridiculous number of brilliant string quartets to the genre, a fact that undoubtedly owes in great part to the existence of a brilliant and long-standing ensemble in Tbilisi, the Georgian State String Quartet. There is a fine English-subtitled documentary about the group you can watch on Youtube. By long-standing, I mean that the original foursome was still intact 45 years after its inception when the documentary was filmed in 2011. The film gives the sense of a collegial scene in Tbilisi over those decades. Most of the composers included on this mixtape were either enrolled in or teaching at the Tbilisi Conservatory when the quartet started in the ’60s, and they wrote quartet pieces specifically for the ensemble. What the GSSQ brings to Shostakovich and Georgian composers like Tsintsadze and Nasidze (all of whom they’ve recorded for various labels, including majors like Sony) is exactly the intensity the pieces require… They are straight-up Georgian, which is to say they get into it.
When considering Georgian classical music, it is important to note the following:
- Music and dance are essential threads in the fabric of Georgian life. (As is wine, which was being made there 7,000 years ago…) I am not repeating a trope from a “10 Reasons to Visit Georgia” Youtube piece (though I have watched many) – I have a friend who’s Georgian, and when I asked him about the place, the first thing he said was, “The singing and dancing…” (What must it be like to live in a place where those are the first thiings that come to mind when asked for a description, I wonder… As opposed to a place where the first words that come to mind are “greed” and “racism”…) Georgians today are proud of their musical heritage, particularly the polyphonic choral singing that is still vital today. Watch Youtube videos of the Basiana and Rustavi choirs to get an idea of the that high art form. And while there are many pockets of ethnic subgroups within the Georgian nation, whose folk musics contain distinctive elements, I feel comfortable saying Georgian folk music is some of my favorite music in the world.
- The Georgian language family is entirely distinct, with no resemblance to any other in terms of words or alphabet. There are many, many ways composers’ names can be spelled in the Roman alphabet. I have seen Sulkhan Tsintsadze’s name spelled Cinzadze and Zinzadze; multiple spellings exist for most of the composers herein, to the extent that it can be confusing. To me, at least. This has caused at least one embarrassing flub on my radio show…
- Perhaps related to the the language barrier, there is not a ton of English-language info available on the internet. I don’t know if the Georgian State String Quartet made it to their silver anniversary in 2016 because I can’t find an answer. None of my reference books have even meager entries on the Georgian composers, aside from Kancheli. A lot of what is on-line information-wise is incomplete and often contradictory. Discogs is not much help, nor are the other usual go-to’s (Wikipedia, Presto Classical, ArkivMusic, Naxos…). Doing image searches, I find pictures of record sleeves and CDs that otherwise don’t seem to exist.
- I’m not sure why exactly, because the number of Georgians in Germany is wee, but there is an important musical link between the two countries. The Georgian Chamber Orchestra, founded in Tiblisi in 1964, moved in toto to Ingolstadt (in Bavaria) in 1990. I suppose regional tensions in the wake of the USSR’s collapse must have played a role in that decision. The Georgian State String Quartet, similarly, was based for a period in Germany. The presence of the young-ish German cello virtuoso Maximilian Hornung at Sulkan Nasidze’s 90th birthday concert in Tbilisi in 2017, which you can hear below, is part of that. Hornung has recorded Tsintsadze’s excellent cello concerto (with Shostakovich’s 2nd) for Myrios Classics in Germany and can be seen online playing Vaja Azarashvili’s 1978 cello concerto. By the way, the 80-minute Nasidze concert is in hi-res vid on Youtube.
The composers and artists in this program is far from complete. I have awesome music from other Georgians but I didn’t want to run too long. And there are other composers I can’t find anything by… or at least nothing I love. I love the stuff on this collection.
Oh yeah, the playlist… I will add info to this – dates, labels – as I find them.
0:00:00
Sulkhan Tsintsadze: Simgera (Song),
from 17 Miniatures (version for string orchestra)
Ariel Zuckermann: Georgian CO Ingolstadt
from Georgian Miniatures
(Oehms, 2011)
0:02:11
Iosif Bardanashvili: String Quartet No. 1 (I. Allegro: Danse Macabre)
Georgian State String Quartet
(Youtube)
0:14:13
Tsintsadze: Five Pieces based on folk tunes; No. 2 “Tchonguri”
Daniil Shafran (cello) w/ Nina Musinyan
from Russian Soul
(Cello Classics, 2002)
0:15:32
Otar Taktakishvili (1924-1989): Poem
Luka Okrostsvaridze (piano)
from Anthology of Soviet & Russian Piano Music
(Melodiya, 2012)
0:21:57
Nodar Gabunia: Piano Trio
Storiono Trio
( Youtube)
0:46:01
Taktakishvili: Violin Concerto No. 2 (1986); I. And II.
Liana Isakadze (v): Georgian Chamber Orchestra of Ingolstadt
from Kartuli Musika
(Orfeo, 1992)
0:56:50
Tsintsadze: Miniatures for String Quartet; No. 10
Georgian State String Quartet
(Youtube)
0:59:43
Zurab Nadareishvili (1957- ): Tarantella (2014)
Tamar Zhvania (piano)
(Youtube)
1:04:23
Nasidze: Concerto for Violin and Cello
Lisa Batiashvili (v) and Maximilian Hornung (c) w/
Georgian Sinfonietta
live at Nasidze 90th anniversary concert
@ Djansug Kakhidze Tbilisi Center
Oct. 31, 2017
(Youtube)
1:25:23
Natela Svanidze: Circle for prepared piano (1972)
Nino Jvani
(Youtube)
1:29:19
Giya Kancheli (1935-2020): Vom Winde Beweint,
IV. Andante Maestoso
Kim Kashkashian (viola) w/ Dennis Russell Davies: Beethovenhalle Orchestra
Kancheli & Schnittke Viola Concertos
(ECM New Series, 1992)
1:41:25
Tsintsadze: String Quartet No. 10 (Polyphonical)
Georgian State String Quartet
from Tsintsadze: String Quartet 10 & Miniatures
(Beaux, 2012)
Concentration Camp 