"Mourned by the Wind (Vom Winde Beweint)", liturgy for viola and large orchestra
Combined with:
Schnittke: Viola Concerto
ECM New Series 1471 (437 199-2)
ECM New Series 1471 (437 199-2)
More striking than either symphony though is Mourned by the Wind, one of the very few pieces of music composed in memory of a musicologist - Kancheli's fellow-Georgian and a figure well known to Shostakovich scholars, Givi Ordzhonikidze. Here is another example of Kancheli's special gift for finding pathos in the simplest of musical materials, with the solo viola's unearthly keening set against waterfalls of passionate declamation for the full orchestra. In its starkness and haunting spirituality this should appeal to those who respond to Part, Gorecki or Tavener - and perhaps even more so to listeners who find those composers a little too glamorous in their asceticism, so to speak, and who prefer to meet the music half way, rather than merely submitting to its spell.
On the ECM disc Kim Kashkashian's performance of the Liturgy is every bit as fine and rather more realistically recorded and her account of the Schnittke Concerto is magnificent. Having said that, Bashmet on RCA has an even wider range of tone-colour and characterization; his Schnittke is a performance of quite staggering command and insight. But if that all means that the ECM disc is squeezed out of contention it would be a great pity, not least because it comes with an outstandingly thoughtful booklet essay from Wilfrid Mellers. It may be worth adding that Bashmet is the dedicatee of the Kancheli Liturgy, and that his Melodiya recording of it with the Georgian Symphony Orchestra and Kakhidze is finer than either of its CD rivals. I very much hope that RCA have a new Bashmet recording in mind for the near future.
Gramophone, April 1993
The immense stature of Schnittke’s 1985 Viola Concerto is reflected by yet another commercial recording, its third. The American violist Kim Kashkashian gives a remarkable performance, passionate and at times dangerously abandoned, of a concerto that may arguably be the finest written for the instrument. It was originally composed for Yuri Bashmet, whose recent recording with the LSO and Rostropovich is significantly slower than Kashkashian’s. The faster speeds of Dennis Russell Davies and the Saarbrücken orchestra introduce a quality of desperation which serves to emphasise the grotesque ironies in the music while underlining its bleakness and desolation. Moments of uncertain intonation from the soloist do not distract unduly from this white-hot performance.
The remarkable companion work, by the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli, is Vom Winde beweint, a liturgy for solo viola and large orchestra. In four movements, its slowness, melancholy and full tonal colours relate to the music of Pärt and Górecki, but the brutal, almost bombastic, outbursts from the brass in the second movement, powerfully performed by the Orchestra of the Beethovenhalle, uneasily approach film music.
Annette Morreau
BBC Music Magazine