Concentration Camp

One side benefit of exploring the world of modern classical music is a much better appreciation of world history and, consequently, geography than I had prior.

What I didn’t know about Kazakhstan before embarking on a survey of its modern-era composers a couple months ago could have filled a book, titled “Kazakhstan.”  I am not implying your knowledge of world history and geography is as slack as mine was, but just in case it is, here’s a few facts that are worth knowing about Kazakhstan.

1.  Kazakhstan is in the very center of Asia, and it is huge.  If you had a map of Asia the size of a normal front door welcome mat and dropped a baked potato right into the very middle of it, you’d have a good idea of Kazakhstan’s size and position. (I suggest baked, as a baked potato will not bounce.)  Kazakhstan is the size of Western Europe, from Moscow to Lisbon, from Sicily to the Arctic Circle.  It is the largest land-locked nation in the world (the toxic puddles that are the Caspian and Aral Seas do not count as water.)  It is also, of course, not a real country at all.  It was, up until Russia’s intrusion, part of a vast and borderless Asian steppe, from what is now eastern China (where the Moslem Uyghars live) and Mongolia and all the way over to eastern Ukraine.  Despite its association with the USSR, which wanted the territory for its almost limitless deposits of ores and oil, and despite Stalin’s social engineering schemata, Kazakhstan is wayyyy more Asian than European.  Which is to say, the people settled there before Russia’s arrival look more Mongol or Chinese than Middle Eastern. 
   
   Like everywhere, for most of human history what is now Kazakhstan was controlled by tribes and tribal chieftans.  The borders of Kazakhstan and the other central Asian countries were imposed in largely arbitrary fashion by a European power (Russia) with the same care that other European nations employed in drawing up maps of Africa and the Middle East, places where times of peace are rare or non-existent today.

2. Kazakhstan was indeed a Soviet republic for most of the 20th century. As in other formerly border-free amalgams of peoples, Kazakh’s statehood within the USSR brought some unity to a region with many different languages and cultures.  Principally, it seems, that unity stems from imposing the Russian language in schools and government work.  The imposition of a Soviet administrative structure, though far less positive, also brought a sense of unity. 
   
   I have read traveller’s accounts of trips in central Asia – The Lost Heart of Asia by Colin Thubron is one I would HIGHLY recommend – and I gather the loss of a unifying language and a sense of central authority are the things that people miss most about their years as a Soviet republic.  Of course, enough time has passed at this point – 30 years – that there aren’t so many who can remember the Soviets, though there are still lots of Russian (Slavic) people there, roughly 24% of the population, ethnicity-wise.
   
   Aside from that, Russia’s legacy to the steppe republics-cum-nations like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is grim.  The Soviets left an entrenched and corrupt bureaucracy.  Kazakhstan does not do well on human rights inventories, shall we say.  And the Soviets’ utter lack of concern about environmental damage left its mark as well.  A correlation useful for Americans is the scrubland in the U.S. West, home to vast Indian reservations and a zillion megadeadly Superfund sites.
   
   As with Ukraine, Stalin’s role  in creating the disaster in the steppe region designated “Kazakhstan” can hardly be overstated. As in Ukraine, Stalin presided over a famine that killed millions. Less quantifiable than environmental devastation, famine death tolls, or human rights abuses, the toll Russian presence took on the ancient cultures in the region is probably just as grim. “Folk” music had its own prescriptive dictates under Stalinist Russia.
   
   

3. Soviet intrusion in the Kazakh region is, of course and nevertheless, the reason  we have the music on this mixtape.  As in Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Estonia and (as far as I know) all of the states in the former union, Soviet hegemony saw the creation of a national music conservatory.  Kazakhstan’s is different, so far as I can tell, in that it seems to have been started without Moscow’s oversight.  Also unusual is the fact that the Almaty conservatory  didn’t begin operation until 1944. The Kurmangazy Kazakh conservatory did not produce, so far as I can tell, the large number of professional composers that Tblisi’s or Kiev’s did.  That may owe a lot to its distance from Moscow (3,911 km. or 51 hours by car).  Tbilisi is in the backyard compared to Almaty. 
   

It is very difficult to find much in the way of non-Cyrillic info on Kazakh composers.  And aside from classical-music-online.net, which has a helpful sort-by-country index, it’s hard to find any music at all.  (To that end, if by any million-to-one chance somebody with knowledge of this music happens to read this post and can fill in some of the many info holes in the playlist below, please write with deets!)

That said, there is a lot more great classical music from Kazakhstan than this mix represents.  I had to leave off a bunch of interesting music because it was too poorly recorded or because the recordings had deteriorated before they could be digitalized.  Hopefully, that will change with time, but I sort of doubt it.  (C’mon, Naxos!)

Kazakhstan may be the only country in the world where its best-known composer is a woman.  Gaziza Zhubanova (1927-1993) was the daughter of one of Kazakh classical music’s founding fathers, Ahmet Zhubanov (1906-1968), and she authored two outstanding string quartets, two very… interesting (in a good way) symphonies and two oratorios that sound like music from a parallel universe. She was not, I don’t believe, trying to sound weird.  Kazakhstan, I gather, is like a parallel universe, or at least was while she was writing.  Now I suppose all the well-off people have iPhones and Instagram.

The Kazakh State String Quartet, heard thrice on this mixtape, also goes by the name the Zhubanova Quartet, if I read my liner notes correctly…

There are works by three young Kazakh composers in this mix, two of them women, all of them with excellent Soundcloud pages.  Galya Bisengalieva is a London-based Kazakh who plays directs and plays violin in the London Contemporary Orchestra in addition to composing.  Her records, hypnotic and pulsing with a steppian throb, can be found on bandcamp.  There are two cuts herein from her latest album, Aralkum, which portrays the ecocide of the Aral Sea. Aralkum is the name of the desert  where the Aral Sea used to be.  On her Soundcloud page you can hear her performing Mahler and Mozart in addition to her own works.

Aijeram Seilova (1987- ) is a Hamburg-based composer.  Her percussion and electronica piece, co-written with – I assume – a German dude is, I think, my favorite percussion piece of all time.

Sanzhar Baiterekov (1987- ) would seem to be a genius in his own right based on his Soundcloud page, but, somewhat distressingly, most of the stuff on the page is over 7 years old. He moved to Russia in 2009 and is hopefully still alive.

The main raison d’etre for this mixtape, though, is the 4th symphony by the Uighur composer Kuddus Kuzhamyarov (1918–1994, also spelled Quddus Khojamyarov.)  Like Bisengalieva’s Aralkum, the symphony (date unknown but probably from the 1980s…?) portrays a desolate region in eastern Kazakhstan, the vast Takla-Makan desert.  I found a much cleaner version of this masterwork online than the one I played on the radio and I need to share it.  It is, like the Zhubanova oratorios and symphonies, parallel universe music and is, to my mind, one of the finest folk-based symphonies to emerge from the Soviet republics, if not the best.  And that, I should note, is saying something. Here at Concentration Camp, at any rate.  I hope I get to hear his second and third symphonies some day.

0:00:19
Galya Bisengalieva: “Moynaq” (excerpt)
Aralkum (bandcamp)

0:00:57
Korkyt Ata (9th C.): “Konur”
arranged by A. Kazakbayez for 3 kobuz & string quartet
Kazakh State String Quartet w/ Kazakbayev Alkyat, Zhusupova Zhanar & 
Omarova Madina (kobuz)
Great Steppe Melodies (Divox, 2016)

0:06:43
Artyk Toxanbayev (1958- ): “Steppe Sketches for Violin & Cello & Piano”
Sholpan Ungarova (piano), Harald Aadland (violin) & ? 

0:10:29
Ahmet Zhubanov (1906-1968): Tajik Dances, #?
unknown performer

0:13:06
Gaziza Zhubanova: String Quartet No. 1
Kazakh State String Quartet
Kazakh Classical Music  (Divox, 2016)

0:28:18
Bisengalieva: “Moynaq” (excerpt)

0:29:39
Kuddus Kuzhamyarov (1918–1994):  Symphony No. 4, “Takla Makan”
Tolepbergen Abdrashev (Conductor): Kazakh State SO (?) 

0:54:45
Alibee Mambetov Zhubanov (1961–2018): Piano Trio, “Elegy”, 2nd movement
Makpal Beckma (v), Askar Mukanov (c) & Karina Izmailova (piano) 

0:57:21
Bisengalieva: “Moynaq” (excerpt)

0:59:07
Gaziza Zhubanova: “Folk Dance” 
from the ballet The Legend of the White Bird
Nurlan Ismailov (p)

1:02:58
Sanzhar Baiterekov (1987- ): “Helios,” Concerto for Violin & Orchestra (2013)
Roman Belyshev: Orchesta of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

1:12:47
Aijeram Seilova (1987- ) & Steffen Lowry: “Nebuli”
Fabian Otten & Chia-Hui Choi (percussion) 
live performance – Hamburg, 2014

1:27:00
Kazakbayev Alkyat (1972- ): “Ablaikhan Zhorgylk”
Kazakh State String Quartet w/ 3 kobus (see above) & 
Temirbekov Nuraly (drum)
Great Steppe Melodies (Divox, 2016)

1:32:29
Galya Bisengalieva: “Aralkum”
Aralkum (bandcamp)

2020 in Review

For all the miserable shit that went down in 2020, it really wasn’t all that bad a year, at least for those who lost no relatives or livelihoods to COVID – if one applies the retrospect available to me here on Jan. 18, 2021, that is. I don’t think it’s cheating to say 2020 will not be officially over until a new administration takes over in eight days. So the 2020 calendar gets a little added on, not unlike trump’s Sharpee’d hurricane map.

The main highlight was the November election, which officially concluded two weeks ago. The sleazy, moronic con-man lost the election, and then last week, by inciting a deadly riot, guaranteed he’ll never hold any political office unless, maybe, as governor of a third-world southern state like florida or alabama.

The November election also showed Georgia to be a Democratic majority state when it failed to go for trump, and then again after the resultant Senate run-offs January 5. The fact that a black minister from Martin Luther King’s old church and a 33-something Jewish Bernie-acolyte will represent Georgia in the Senate is a delayed-effect 2020 highlight of staggering magnitude. And what’s more, Georgia showed that Democrats – or at least Stacy Abrahms – can go the full ten rounds with the Republican ogre and win a TKO.

And while COVID has added a layer of misery (to whatever extent) to an already grim time, even it had its upside. For starters, it was the probably the only thing that kept trump from getting reelected. And I think it also played a vital role in the racial justice movement, as well as in the rise of a pragmatic wing in the Democratic party. And COVID presented a challenge to medical science that produced seemingly miraculous results: effective vaccines had been developed by year’s end.

But COVID owned the year. It’s what everyone will think of whenever anyone says “2020” for the rest of time. COVID made 2020 a year most people outside the upper 10% income bracket would like to forget.

COVID’s effects were devastating for the performing arts and for the people whose lives revolve around them. And I include audiences in that group – the Asheville Chamber Music Series had a great ’20-’21season lined up that went *poof* and I am still pissed. I feel deep empathy for musicians in all genres whose livelihoods revolve in large part on touring and live performances. The NY Times posted the following heart-rending story back on April 19, 2020 (what seems like five years ago), about a vigorous young ensemble that has made two appearances in Asheville that I’ve been lucky enough to see, the Tesla Quartet.

I hope their story, and all touring musicians’ stories, resolves in a happy ending in 2021. Musicians are inherently resilient because they have to be, and audiences for live music quite simply need live music to function properly. As one of the commenters to the NYT article above noted, the people who have real money in this country – the people who could keep the fine arts afloat without a noticeable dent to their bank accounts – simply do not care about the arts. Of course, they do not care about anything, including the future that their offspring will face. The 600+ billionaires in the U.S. right now make the robber barons of the Gilded Age look like St. Francis of Assisi.

One reason I spend my time listening to classical music is to affect a retreat from the bleak-ass world we live in, and in that remote place, at least, I found plenty to like in 2020. Here is a list of five highlights:

1. THE MINNESOTA ORCHESTRA

I was extremely lucky to see two concerts before the shutdown. My good fortune in this respect is not lost on me. If these concerts had been scheduled the following week, they would have been canceled for COVID.

In late 2019, I booked a trip to check out the Twin Cities as a possible relocation site, and lined it up with a couple Minnesota Orchestra performances whose programs seemed almost too good to be true. One had Shostakovich’s rarely-programmed (it transpires in near utter darkness) second violin concerto played by one of today’s great soloists, Christian Tetzlaff, and the second featured an all-Russian program with pieces by Gubaidulina (!) and Ustvolskaya (!!!!). I wrote about the concerts in a blog post. All I will say here is that hearing a world-class orchestra and a highest-echelon soloist in the case of Tetzlaff performing music by geniuses is an incredible experience.

(The postscript to the Minnesota trip, of course, is that a month later a Minneapolis pig murdered George Floyd in chilling fashion, the city (and nation) erupted in outrage, and any thoughts of moving to Minnesota went *poof*.)

But those two shows were it, and so subsequent highlights came from…

2. INTERNET

I’m sorry to admit I didn’t watch many live-streamed concerts even though those were the best way to help out the artists and composers. There were two types of live-streamed concerts, but I had trouble getting into either.

First came the at-home shows – mostly solo performances and a few Zoomed ensemble pieces, like those shows gamely staged by the American Composers Orchestra and the Bang on a Can All-Stars, both of which featured top-notch artists performing a lot of new music from living composers. Often, such shows included interviews with the principals. These are shows where your conscience begs you to contribute on behalf of the artists, which creates a sense of guilt among those living well below the poverty line, such as myself. The Asheville Chamber Music Series is one institution streaming its ’20/’21 season for a suggested donation. I do intend to pay for their stream of the Neaves Trio on Friday, April 23, when they will perform three piano trios by women composers, including Rebecca Clarke’s, which is third only to Tchaikovsky’s and Shostakovich’s on my all-time list.

Then, with the coming of autumn, orchestras began live streaming socially-distanced shows from their regular venues. Neither, of course, had live audiences aside from the people manning the cameras. It’s weird – I curse live audiences when a cougher or restless-legger mars an audio recording of a live performance, but, live, the absence of an audience was off-putting. The same thing happened with college football games and NBA playoffs (baseball, oddly, seemed to suffer least…) The appeal of live events is, in large part, the shared experience. Shared with others in the audience, of course, but also the thrill (to whatever extent) of sharing live space with supremely talented people. Artists and geniuses. Do you know what I mean? I hope so, but at least I know what I mean.

I did manage to mitigate the ulcer in my soul resulting from no live music by watching concerts filmed in the pre-COVID times. The Berlin Philharmonic generously made its on-line concert archive available free of charge for a couple months, early in the shutdown. Their concerts, especially those of the Simon Rattle years, are incredibly well-filmed. Close-ups on hands and instruments, precision choreographed so that the camera is in the right place in anticipation of the moment when, say, the timpanist does a light roll to create a sense of doom, overhead shots of whichever section of the orchestra is in play at that particular moment. Well-filmed shows, along with marijuana gumdrops, are, I’m inclined to think, almost as good as seeing it live. If I had any income to speak of, I would subscribe to the Berlin Philharmonic’s digital concert hall. It’s not cheap – a year’s subscription is €149, or roughly $180 – but it is nevertheless a bargain. There are also less-costly options for the poor and/or classical curious. A 7-day pass is €9.90 ($12) and a 30-day pass is €19.90 ($24). ) A year subscription includes around 40 live-streamed concerts plus access to hundreds of the archived shows, and while the library is well-stocked with the old faithfuls, there is a TON of stuff for fans of the modern-era music For example, there is in the BPO archive is a piece by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, four by Wolfgang Rihm, five from Hans Werner Henze, a dozen performances @ of works by Ligeti and Lutoslawski, and a whopping 35 of Shostakovich (– one more than Bach!) If you want to check it out for a week, I’d recommend as a starting point a 2002 concert, Simon Rattle’s debut as BPO music director, that pairs Thomas Ades’s 1997 Asyla with Mahler’s 5^th symphony.

Utmost respect for Rattle…

Other great sites with lots of filmed concerts available are those operated by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, and London’s Wigmore Hall, most of whom also upload to Youtube. And of course Youtube has a treasure trove of filmed concerts of many vintages, both historical and recent. Lots of orchestras and chamber groups maintain Youtube playlists. My favorite Youtube clip(s) from the year was not a concert, but a recording session. The Avie label filmed Inbal Segev playing Anna Clyne’s concerto for cello, Dance. The reason I wrote clips plural was because each of the five movements is a separate clip. It is a beautifully-filmed rendition of the most beautiful piece of contemporary music I’ve encountered. Segev, conductor Marin Alsop, and all of the musicians of the London Symphony are in regular clothes – mostly t-shirts and jeans – which somehow, for me at least, ups the transcendence quotient. More about Anna Clyne below, but first, on to…

3. GEORGIA

Not the state this time, the country. And it is the country of Georgia, by the way, not the republic… Georgia was a republic when it was part of the USSR, but now it’s a dinky country on the east side of the Black Sea, recently in the news for a skirmish with its eastern neighbor, the former Soviet republic and now country of Armenia. Politically, I do not know anything about the time Georgia spent as a Soviet republic, aside from the unfortunate fact that “Stalin” (real name Ioseb Besarionis dzе Jughashvili) came from there. But I do know that, in terms of music at least, Georgia benefited tremendously by the Soviet system. The Tbilisi Conservatory, established in 1917, nurtured and then employed a group of composers of uncommon abilities who constituted the most intriguing rabbit hole I went down in 2020. I devoted a month’s worth of episodes to Georgia on my radio show, and I also fashioned this talk-free mixtape:

The combination of Georgian folk music (which is ancient, beautiful and very odd) and the influence of post-Stalin Shostakovich produced lots and lots of amazing music. Giya Kancheli is well known in the West, and Sulkhan Tsintsadze somewhat, but Sulkhan Nasidze, Otar Taktakishvili, Nodar Gabunia and Iosep Nadareishvili are all composers I would consider “major” in terms of bodies of interesting work, are – none of them – mentioned in any of my reference books. I should note that Georgia has its own alphabet and that all of those spellings are phonetic and so most have Roman alphabet variations that can be mildly confusing in searching for music.

4. ANNA CLYNE

There are a number of composers working today who are in their primes and who, I think, could “save” classical music from itself, at least to a great extent, if they are given the chance. By “save” I mean write music for orchestras and ensembles that engages younger (in this context, people in their thirties and forties) discerning listeners. These composers write music that is complex and surprising without being deliberately off-putting. (I have absolutely nothing against music that is deliberately unpleasant so long as there is something interesting about it, but I am also realistic – not too many people share my fondness for brutal gnashing.) I’m talking about melodies that hook, melodies that last. I’m talking about putting asses in seats. (Post-COVID, of course…) Of these composers to whom I allude, many, if not most, are women: I would include Dobrinka Tabakova, Gabriela Lena Frank, Caroline Shaw, Missy Mazzoli, and Lera Auerbach in this group. Anna Clyne would be at the top of the list, irrespective of gender. Thomas Ades is the first dude who comes to mind.

It does seem very weird to me that I had not heard of Clyne until 2020’s release of Lisa Stepanova’s fine E Pluribus Unum album, a disc showcasing piano pieces by American composers born in foreign countries (Anna Clyne is British but has resided here for many of her 40 years…), done in response to trump’s immigration policies. Clyne has been composing for major ensembles and artists – ones I pay attention to, like the Chicago Symphony, Jennifer Koh and the Bang-on-a-Can All-Stars – for the last dozen or so years, but I had somehow never heard her. I am pretty convinced that life is an illusion and Clyne’s sudden and very timely appearance in my life would seem to back that up. Digging a little deeper – which is to say watching some Youtube interviews and reading everything I can find – lends credence to an idea I had upon first listen to the cello concerto she wrote for Inbal Segev: Clyne is a composer with greatness about her.

She has a website where one can find out almost all one needs to know and where one can listen in Soundcloud fashion to almost all of the works she’s had performed by top-notch artists or had recorded.

5. Alice’s Piano by Melissa Muller and Reinhard Piechocki
St.Martin’s Press (2006)

I got this book off the FREE cart at the downtown library last winter when it was still open. This is a biography (third person) of Alice Herz-Sommer, who was born into the Jewish intelligentsia of Prague – her sister was pals with Franz Kafka – in 1903. She became a concert pianist, packing them in, whose approach to Chopin was a revelation. She was married with a son when the Nazis took Prague and sent her family to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto, which was initially the Nazi’s display camp (they allowed Red Cross investigators in) and later became a way station for Auschwitz when the Final Solution was implemented. She and her son survived; her husband was sent elsewhere and was lost to history.

At a time when my country had at its helm a buffoonish dictator-wannabe chummy with neo-Nazis, this real-time account of Prague’s descent into maelstrom is a powerful primer on what fascism really means. It is also a testament to the power of music. It was her skill as a pianist and teacher that kept her off the death train. She gave frequent concerts for her fellow inmates before the Final Solution and helped with other musical presentations. Her recollections about Hans Krasa when they worked on Krasa’s children’s opera Brundibar at Terezin are especially poignant. Krasa, who might’ve been remembered as one of the great Czech composers, was murdered at Auschwitz, and all but two or three of the all-child cast were sent to their deaths weeks after Red Cross inspectors saw a performance. (Alice’s son Raphael, who became a top-tier cellist in adulthood, was one of those few survivors.) This is the most inspiring book I have ever read. You want to talk about inner strength? No hand-wringing angst anywhere in the 325 pages, and no sunny bromides either. Just the clear-eyed reflection of an intensely positive person. Upon finishing, I was trying to think of someone I could give my copy to who would actually read it, came up with no one, and so gave it to myself. And it was much appreciated because it is one book, along with The Master and Margarita and Abel Sanchez, I will definitely read again if I don’t, y’know, die early. Alice lived to the age of 110 with that positive attitude of hers – you can watch interviews on Youtube – and I’m thinking a reread will be helpful as dotage and terminal illness loom…

and, of course, there were lots of NEW RELEASES

COVID had no immediate effect on the number of fine new releases. In this sense, at least, 2020 was no different than any year before it. I suppose we will see COVID’s effect on the recording industry as 2021 wears on, however. I’m just going to list five that, if I had any money, I would be willing to guarantee you’ll enjoy immensely if you’ve read this far…

* Ildiko Szabo: Heritage (Hungaroton)

This was my favorite record of the year, along with Anna Clyne’s Mythologies (description below…), but then I am partial to cello, to Hungary and to women artists. That’s all going on here. It’s her third release for Hungaroton. She’s 27 and studied with Janos Starker, who was perhaps first but not last to recognize he had a genius on his hands. The program is excellent and off-beat. Kodaly’s solo sonata is the headliner but the other works, by Ligeti, Eotvos, Szabo (her grandfather)

* Anna Clyne: Mythologies (Avie)
BBC Orchestra

Five single-movement pieces for full-size orchestra from one of the few composers her age to have found a place in major concert halls, Anna Clyne. Clyne writes music that is both challenging (to more or lesser degree, depending upon the situation) and immediately catchy on the melodic tip. I am completely hooked on her orchestral writing. I am very fond of her chamber music, too, much of which involves tape and found sound; I mention the orchestral music because I don’t think there are many people alive who can both orchestrate and create immediately memorable music. Well, I don’t know of anyone. Marin Alsop, a frequent champion of Clyne works, conducts two.

* The Very Best of Pawel Lukaszewski (Dux)
Various

In Poland, Lukaszewski is regarded as the heir of Gorecki, Penderecki and Lutoslawski. I had never heard of him until this 2-CD set, but it makes a very good case for that argument. He is best-known for his vocal and choral works, which are represented here, but his writing for chamber ensembles and orchestras is amply represented as well.

* Charles Ives – Complete Symphonies (DG)
Gustavo Dudamel: Los Angeles Philharmonic

Ives is the only American composer inhabiting that loftiest of stratospheric planes, the one where people like Mahler, Stravinsky and Debussy sit. It makes sense, I suppose, that America’s greatest composer was a hyper-individualistic outsider with contempt for the genteel; also, that he was an insurance executive. There were four completed symphonies and this is an excellent way to get them all. The young Venezuelan Dudamel greets the music with the firm handshake Ives requires. Start with the fourth and work backwards if you’re inclined toward the odd…

* Metal Angel (Toccata)
Gunnar Idenstam

Idenstam is a Lapp organist and composer, born in the Swedish north back in 1961. I read a review of this by an old crank who hates almost all new music, but he loved this. I had to check it out, and WHOA. This is the punk rock/classical hybrid I never thought I’d hear. Idenstam has recorded lots of the organ repertoire, and if you’re familiar with Vierne’s and Messiaen’s writing for organ, this might not be totally surprising to you. I can’t relate it to any other music I’ve heard. Imagine a classical Moondog who came of age in the No Wave… maybe?

Don Howland
Asheville, NC
Jan. 18, 2021

0:00:33
Ildikó Szabó
Peter Eötvös (1944- ): 2 Poems to Polly (1998)
Heritage
Hungaroton (2020)

0:13:02
Maximilian Hornung w/ Andris Poga: Deutsches SO Berlin
Sulkhan Tsintsadze (1925-1991): Cello Concerto No. 2; Episode II; Andante molto
Cello Concertos of 1966
Myrios (2018)

0:22:14
Liana Issakadze (v): Georgian CO w/ Eldar Issakadze (cello)
Sulkhan Nasidze (1927-1996): Concerto for Violin and Cello
Kartuli Musika
Orfeo (1992)

0:46:41
Ildikó Szabó
Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967): Cello Sonata, Op. 8 (1915, premiered 1918)
Heritage
Hungaroton (2020)

1:25:21
Inbal Segev w/ Marin Alsop: London PO
Anna Clyne (1980- ): Dance
Elgar & Clyne Cello Concertos
Avie (2020)

1:53:34
Camille Thomas w/ Mathieu Herzog: Brussels Philharmonic
Henry Purcell: “When I Am Laid in Earth” Dido’s Lamento
(Arr. for Cello and Strings by Mathieu Herzog)
Voice of Hope
Deutsche Grammophon (2020)

0:00:30
Anna Clyne (1980- ): On Track
Lisa Stepanova
E Pluribus Unum
Navona

0:09:52
Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending (1914/20)
Jennifer Pike (v) & Martin Roscoe (p)
Elgar & Vaughan Williams Violin Sonatas, etc.
Chandos

0:24:47
Charles Ives: Symphony No. 4 (completed 1924): IV. Finale.
Gustavo Dudamel: LA Philharmonic
Charles Ives: Complete Symphonies
Deutsche Grammophon

0:34:02
Walter Kaufmann (1907-1984): Septet (before 1945)
ARC Ensemble
Kaufmann Chamber Music
Chandos

0:50:41
Gyorgy Ligeti: Cello Sonata (1953)
Ildiko Szabo
Heritage
Hungaroton

1:01:16
Peteris Vasks: Viola Concerto (2014); I. Andante
Maxim Rysanov (viola & conductor): Riga Sinfonietta
Vasks Viola Concerto & Symphony No.1
BIS

1:11:13
Arvydas Malcys (1957- ): “Blackthorn Eyes” (2004)
Ippolitov-Ivanov Quartet
Malcys & Vasks Piano Quartets
Naxos

1:25:11
Pawel Łukaszewski (1968- ): “Veni Creator”
Jan Łukaszewski: Polish Chamber Choir „Schola Cantorum Gedanensis”
The Very Best of Łukaszewski
Dux

1:38:42
Ed Bennett: “Freefalling”
David Brophy: RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra
Psychedelia
NMC

1:48:37
Linda Buckley: “From Ocean’s Floor”; I. Fil Duine (Gráinne speaks of Diarmuit)
Iarla O’Lionaird w/ Crash Ensemble & Linda Buckley (electronics)
O Iochtar Mara (From Ocean’s Floor)
NMC

1:53:01
Galya Bisngalieva: “Kantubek”
Galya Bisenglieva
Aralkum
One Little Independent

2:01:45
Anna Clyne: << Rewind<<
Andre de Ridder: BBC Symphony Orchestra
Mythologies
Avie

It seems really odd – like, really odd – that I wasn’t aware of Anna Clyne until a track on Lisa Stepanova’s E Pluribus Unum album last summer and then the full-on stunning cello concerto “Dance” for Inbal Segev that came out a short time after. Clyne’s work has been championed, performed and recorded by artists I pay close attention to (e.g. Jennifer Koh, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Knights…) and has been released on labels I always keep an eye on (e.g. Tzadik, Cedille, Avie). Now, four months on from learning of her existence, I wouldn’t hesitate to call Clyne one of my favorite composers of all time. I have listened to everything I can find and I pretty much love it all. I’ve found a lot: Clyne’s prolific and works in multiple media, and frequently collaborates with artists in other fields. Her early electro-acoustic stuff is fierce and that vigor has remained consistent; in the pieces she’s written over the last eight years she has shown an uncommon sense of melody, dynamics and effect, and she applies it to music that is intricate and consistently intriguing… Tonal and heavyweight at the same time.

I needed that. Along with Dolt 45’s defeat in the November election, my introduction to Clyne’s music represents one of the few highlights of 2020 in my weary world. I think/hope this program of her work will make your 2020 a little brighter, too.

One final note: I have played the Stepanova and Segev turns on previous shows and will reprise each in the next two weeks. Two hours is way too short for composers like this…

I guess Mixcloud doesn’t embed in WordPress anymore, so here is the address for the radio show devoted to Clyne: https://www.mixcloud.com/deafmix3/121320-the-music-of-british-composer-anna-clyne-1980-/

0:00:32
“Masquerade” (2013)
Marin Alsop: BBC Symphony Orchestra
from Mythologies (Avie, 2020)

0:10:42
“A Wonderful Day” (2013)
Bang on a Can All-Stars
live, 2015 (WQXR channel, Youtube)

0:16:45
“Night Ferry” (2012)
Riccardo Muti: Chicago SO
from Riccardo Muti Conducts Mason Bates & Anna Clyne (CSO, 2014)

0:41:42
“Prince of Clouds” (2012)
Jennifer Koh & Jaime Laredo w/ Vinay Parameswran: Curtis 20/21 Ensemble
from 2 x 4 (Cedille, 2014)

0:58:06
“Shorthand” for cello & string quintet (2020)
Musicians from The Knights feat. Karen Ouzounian, cello
world premiere performance, 2020 (Caramoor channel, Youtube)

1:11:07
“Three Sisters” Concerto for Mandolin & String Orchestra (2017)
Avi Avital w/ Nicholas McGegan: Detroit SO
world premiere performance, 2019 (Detroit SO channel, Youtube)

1:31:07
“Sound and Fury” (2019)
Catherine Larsen-Maguire: Scottish Chamber Orchestra
live, 2020 (Scottish CO channel, Youtube)

1:50:57
“Fits and Starts” for cello, backing cello & tape (2003)
Benjamin Capps (cello) & Anna Clyne (backing cello & tape)
from Blue Moth (Tzadik, 2012)

Mid-century, Andrzej Panufnik (1914-1991) was probably foremost among a group of Polish composers that included Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Bacewicz and Gorecki. After defecting in 1954, he did not find the Western musical world particularly welcoming, which is a shame because his music was – and is – as catchy and engaging as anything written in the 20th Century, despite the complex theory that girds it. Not counting the large body of work completed before WWII, which burned, he wrote 10 symphonies, five concertos, and a sizable body of chamber music while living in England. And it’s all really good, at least everything I’ve heard so far. It is music that people who are not classical music fans would like. Or love.

Panufnik’s life story is worth reading about. He survived WWII in Poland, playing underground concerts in Warsaw as part of a piano duo with Lutoslawski (classical music is the jazz of Europe, it is worth remembering…) and writing anthems for the resistance, the most famous of which can be heard in this program. All of his work up to the war’s end, however, was incinerated, and he had to start over. Stalinite art censors in Soviet-bloc postwar Poland drove Panufnik to defect, which – for the youngsters out there – was dangerous and complicated. Settling in the U.K. (he was regarded as suspicious by American authorities, then in the McCarthy-ite commie-hunting frenzy…), he faded into the background, despite support from no less then Ralph Vaughan Williams and commissions from the world’s top conductors and orchestras. He was, in the end, appreciated in England towards the end of his life, and was knighted; in Poland, which he returned to only after the Soviet bloc collapsed, he is a giant. He is considered a top-tier composer in Europe, moreover.

Panufnik’s daughter Roxanna (1968- ), meanwhile, has established herself as one of England’s preeminent composers on her own merits. Her chamber music, songs and choral works have been recorded by labels like EMI, BIS, Signum and Chandos.

This is a great show, featuring music by both father and daughter.

Roxanna Panufnik – Memories of My Father; I. O Tu, Andrzej
Brodsky Quartet w/ Robert Smissen (va) & Robert May (c)
Messages: Chamber Work for Strings, Andrzej & Roxanna Panufnik
Chandos

Andrzej Panufnik: Suita polska, “Hommage à Chopin”: I. Andante (Arr. R. Panufnik)
Clare Hammond
Reflections – Solo Piano Works of Andrzej and Roxanna Panufnik
BIS

Andrzej Panufnik: Suita polska (Hommage a Chopin) (1949)
(version for flute and string orchestra)
Lucasz Borowicz: Polish NRSO w/ w/ Lukasz Dlugosz (f)
Andrzej Panufnik: Symphonic Works, v. 3
CPO

Andrzej Panufnik: Sinfonia rustica (Symphony No. 1, 1948/1955)
IV. Allegro
Lukasz Borowicz: Polish Radio SO
Andrzej Panufnik: Symphonic Works, v. 2
CPO

Andrzej Panufnik: “Warszawskie dzieci” (Children of Warsaw)
Sara LeMesh (soprano) and Allegra Chapman (p)
live performance
Youtube

Andrzej Panufnik: Violin Concerto (1971)
Piotr Plawner w/ Jürgen Bruns: Kammersymphonie Berlin
Polish Violin Concertos
Naxos

Roxanna Panufnik: “Zen Love Song”
Barnaby Smith: VOCES8 and Kiku Day
Roxanna Panufnik: Love Abides
Signum

Andrzej Panufnik: Symphony No. 10 (1988, rev. 1990)
Kazmierz Kord: Warsaw National PO
A. Panufnik Cello Concerto & Symphonies 3 & 10
Accord (PL)

Andrzej Panufnik: Cello Concerto (1991, premiered 1992) Mstislav Rostropovich w/ Hugh Wolff: London SO NMC Panufnik Cello Concerto (single) NMC

A. & R. Panufnik: Modlitwa
Brodsky Quartet w/ Robert Smissen (va) & Robert May (c)
Panufniks Chamber Music
Chandos

A big part of what makes 20^th 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 10^th (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!

20^th 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:

1. 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.
   
2. 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…
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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 90^th 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 2^nd) 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 90^th 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)

 

Shostakovich’s use of Jewish motifs and themes in his music was, even after the death of the virulently anti-Semitic Stalin, an act of defiance. This show presents music in which those motifs and themes – and Shostakovich’s empathy for the Jewish people – are upfront. Included are movements from two string quartets, a song cycle, a piano trio, and a violin concerto, along with the first movement of his 13th symphony, a setting of Yevteshenko’s poem “Babi Yar”, which confronted the horror of Nazi savagery in the Ukraine and, implicitly, anti-Semitism in the USSR. The dates in parentheses are, first, the year the composition was completed, and, second, the year the piece was premiered to the public.

0:00:18
Shostakovich: From Jewish Folk Poetry, Op. 79 (1948/1955);
No. 1. The Lament for the Dead Child
      Marina Zhukova & Elena Svechnikova w/ Vladimir Spivakov: Moscow Virtuosi
(Music Masters)

0:08:07
Shostakovich: From Jewish Folk Poetry, Op. 79 (1948/1955);
No. 2. The Helpful Mother & Aunt

0:12:45
Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 (1944/1944);
IV. Allegretto
      Emmanuel Ax (p), Isaac Stern (v) Yo-Yo Ma (c)
(Sony)

0:26:09
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 4 in D Major, Op. 83 (1949/1953);
IV. Allegretto
      Beethoven Quartet
(Doremi)

0:36:49
Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 77 (1948/1955);
IV. Burlesque
       David Oistrakh w/ Yevgeny Mravinsky: Leningrad PO
(Brilliant Classics)

0:58:49
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13 in B-flat minor, Op. 113 (1962/1962);
I. Babi Yar (words: Yevgeny Yevtushenko)
      Ayik Martyrosyan (bass) w/ Valeri Polyansky: Russian State SO
      & Symphonic Capella
(Chandos)
(also pictured: Kirill Kondrashin)

1:21:20
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 10 in A-flat major, Op. 118 (1964/1964);
III. Adagio (Attacca) & IV. (Allegretto/Andante)
      Beethoven Quartet
(Doremi)

1:36:57
Shostakovich: From Jewish Folk Poetry, Op. 79; No. 3, “Lullaby”
      Marina Zhukova & Elena Svechnikova w/ Spivakov: Moscow Virtuosi
(Music Masters)

 

In doing my radio show that no one listens to, what I lack in technical knowledge I make up for with some fully-formed and – so far as I can tell – unassailable convictions (e.g. Shostakovich is god, Bartok is god, and Schnittke is also god) as well as a reasonable understanding of the history of the music and the places where it was written. I like to read, and I have read a lot about classical music in the last five years. (I knew next to nothing prior to that.) I like reading history, and it is fascinating to read about the context within which a composer worked because, like many Americans, I got no understanding of world history while in high school or college. As I am wont to repeat, since it is glaringly true, native-born Americans can not begin to understand the horror experienced in most of the world – Central America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia – in the 20th Century. I say this because I didn’t or couldn’t understand it, either, until fairly recently. (I highly recommend Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcasts; the four episodes on the Ostfront in WWII might be a good place to start…)

In the 20th century, Russia – or from 1917-1992, the USSR – not only had to deal with a violent overthrow of its ruling system and a savage invader whose soldiers were ordered to commit genocide – the Nazis – but it also had, during the long and brutal reign of Jozef “Stalin”, to deal with a leader seemingly bent on killing more Russians than Hitler. Which he did. Which is saying something.

Stalin, by middle-of-the-road estimates, killed around 100 million of his own citizens during his almost 3-decade reign; he was a leader who killed people who told jokes about him – even if the evidence was hearsay. Shostakovich in Testimony recounts going into bathrooms at gatherings in order to tell jokes, so that you could have the faucets running to mask any accidental laughter.

Naturally, free expression by artists was untenable in such a climate. Artists (apart from writers, that is) were not killed, generally; they were simply deprived of any way to earn an income – at which point they could always drink themselves to death. Composers like Shostakovich and Prokofiev, who had established international fame before Stalin’s consolidation of power, were luckier. They were allowed to compose, though within limits – innovations in Western art music like 12-tone rows, atonality, and harsh dissonances were forbidden. Young Soviet composers in the post-War years were not allowed to even learn about such innovations, although several instructors snuck stuff in from time to time. Music history for the conservatory students in the late 1940s and early 1950s pretty much stopped at Brahms. Mahler was considered radical, in other words. Schoenberg? Berg? Webern? No chance.

There was no celebration when Stalin died – like Hitler, the majority of the population (those that he hadn’t killed or disappeared) loved him – but artists warily and gradually resumed their natural inclination to push boundaries when Stalin left the picture.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Peter Schmelz, who has written two excellent books of musical history, both on the art/classical music composers coming of age in the Thaw.

The first of the books, the one that lead me to reach out to Dr. Schmelz, is an overview of the period titled Such Freedom, if only musical; Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw. It is a book that covers the early and radical successes of a bunch of composers who went on to establish long and storied careers (Arvo Part, Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Valentin Silvestrov), as well as some fascinating characters (like Andrei Volkonsky) who didn’t.

The second book, which came out in 2019, is Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1. Not unlike those tomes that examine a classic rock’n’roll album and its context, the Schnittke book is fun, for lack of a better word. Peppered with pictures – one shows Gidon Kremer in tinted shades and long sideburns and his then-wife Tatjana Grindenko in a hippie blouse at the recording session, e.g. – it gets into the minutiae that give new insights into a work you’ll want listen to again multiple times.

The following mix is the music of the Thaw, straight up and without introductions or interview segments. It is NOT a good place to start with these composers, necessarily – the famous names all went on to establish distinctive styles with widely-admired pieces considerably less radical than those heard herein. (I’m going to do another mix of such works soon.) No, this is the sound of a bunch of geniuses back when they were kids and suddenly had the freedom to experiment.  Schmelz confirmed that the excitement I sensed in the proceedings was not just me reading-between-the-lines. The breaking-rules exhilaration (however muted by circumstances and genetics) on the part of unofficial composers and on the parts of the audiences for their works that Schmelz described reminded me of music scenes like the free jazz underground of the early ’60s that Leroi Jones/Amira Baraka described in Black Music or the late-’70s No Wave scene on NYC’s Lower East Side. Guerrilla concerts in houses and hole-in-the-wall clubs, news spread by word-of-mouth, cigarettes, sunglasses, and a whole bunch of smart young people looking good…

I can not recommend the two books highly enough. I found a copy of Such Freedom on Biblio for $25 bucks. The Schnittke book is paperback and a new release, so it’s affordable. Schmelz’s next book will deal with the 1980s, when Part, Schnittke, Silvestrov and Gubaidulina emerged as internationally-recognized talents. Needless to say, I’m psyched for that one, too.

0:00:00
Volkonsky: Mirror Suite for soprano and 5 players
  on text by Federico García Lorca (1960) (excerpt)
0:00:05
Volkonsky: Musica Stricta (1956) (excerpt)
        Alexei Grots

0:05:05
Volkonsky: Mirror Suite (excerpt)
        Lydia Davydova & Andrei Volkonsky (organ) w/ Igor Blazhkov:
        Leningrad PO Soloists Ensemble

0:07:55
Part: Nekrolog, Op. 5 (1961) 
        Paavo Jaarvi: Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra

0:20:30
Schnittke: Violin Sonata (1963); arr. for chamber orchestra, 1968); III.
       Christian Bergqvist w/ Lev Markiz: Stockholm CO

0:26:00
Denisov: Sun of the Incas (1964) 
        Nelly Lee (soprano) w/ Alexander Lazarev: Bolshoi Theatre Soloists

0:46:15
Karetnikov: Symphony No. 4 (1964)
        Alexander Lazarev: BBC Symphony

1:12:45
Gubaidulina: Night In Memphis (1968) 
        Moscow State Film Orchestra

1:36:50
Silvestrov: Trio for flute, trumpet and celesta (1962)
        Orlando Cela, flute; Jonah Kappraff, trumpet; Sivan Etedgee, celesta

1:47:02
Tishchenko: Piano Concerto (1962) (excerpt)
        Boris Tishchenko (p) w/ Igor Blazkov: Leningrad PO

1:55:44
Part: Perpetuum Mobile (1963)

1:58:47
Schnittke: Violin Concerto 2 (1966)
        Mark Lubotsky w/ Eri Klas: Malmo SO

10:01
Zsolt Durkó: Una Rapsodie Ungherese per Due Clarinetti Soli Orchestra (1965)
    Bela Kovac & Tibor Dietrich (cls) w/ Gyorgy Lehel: Hungarian State Radio and TV Orchestra
        Szőllősy/Bozay/Durkó (Unesco Series of Contemporary Music)

10:18
Miklos Rozsa: Duo, Op. 7
    Endre Granat (v) w/ Leonard Pennario (p)
        Rozsa: Duo/Little Suite/Variations on a Hungarian Peasant Song  (Orion)

10:34
Frederic Balazs: Two Dances for Flute & Orchestra
    Paul Pazmandy (fl) w/ Balazs: Phiharmonia Hungarica
        Balazs & Mourant (CRI)

11:05
András Szőllősy: Trasfigurazioni per Orchestra (1972)
    Gyorgy Lehel: Orchestra of Hungarian Radio and Television
        (Hungaraton)

11:25
Bela Bartok: Deux Images, Op. 10
    Gyorgy Lehel: Hungarian Radio Orchestra
        Hungarian Peasant Songs / Two Portraits, Op. 5 / Deux Images  (Artia Recording Corp.)

11:47
Jozsef Suproni: Invenzioni sul B-A-C-H
    Adam Fellegi
        Contemporary hungarian music (Hungaroton 11692)