Symphony No. 1
Symphony No. 4 "To the Memory of Michelangelo"
Symphony No. 5 "To the Memory of My Parents"
Ondine ODE 829-2, reissued: Ondine ODE 8290
Ondine ODE 829-2, reissued: Ondine ODE 8290
This disc has already been available but has now been re-issued at a lower price in a smart cardboard cover to mark Ondine’s 20th Birthday celebrations.
Unfortunately for Ondine and DePreist, two of the three symphonies here have already been released on Olympia in vastly superior performances by the Georgian State Symphony Orchestra under Dzhansug Kakhidze. I suppose it is similar to Elgar being played by British orchestras, but there is a rightness to these Olympia performances, although technically and recording quality wise, the Ondine release is the better bet. The Olympia discs still appear to be available, but you will get different couplings – the Ondine release is the only one to couple these three works.
Kancheli is not particularly well known, but deserves to be more so, based upon this evidence. Georgia, tucked away in the Caucasus, has a wide culture of folk music which it has protected vigorously against outside influences. On the classical side, composers such as Paliashvili, Machavariani, Tsintsadze and Taktakishvili all enjoyed wide acceptance within the Soviet Union. Kancheli belongs to the next generation, and similarly was well respected within the Eastern Bloc. He first rose to notice in the 1970s, and most of his works were premiered by the Georgian State Philharmonic Orchestra and Dzhansug Kahidze. His first work to be so premiered was the Concerto for Orchestra (1962), followed at regular intervals by his seven symphonies. In 1988, Kancheli was awarded the honorary title of Soviet People’s Artist.
Kancheli, in addition to his orchestral works, has spend a great deal of time working in the theatre and this has had an effect on his style. For many years he has been the musical director at the Rustaveli Theatre in Tbilisi. In this position, he has produced much music for both film and stage, including plays by Shakespeare, Anouilh, and Brecht.
His musical style has developed over the years from neo-Bartókian origins, towards an epic narrative inspired by Georgian folk music. He has in the past criticised the use of folk music in serious compositions, but while he avoids direct quotation of such material, the basic conception is shot through with the ancient tradition of ritual folk songs.
Kancheli’s symphonic writing is characterised by colourism and montage techniques. Symphonic tensions are missing. In compensation, he pieces together starkly contrasting elements into a balanced harmonious synthesis, often in a highly individual rondo form.
The First Symphony is influenced by a grotesque motoric quality in the style of Shostakovich march themes. It is built around two dynamic extremes – by turns stunning explosions in tutti sections and lyrical meditations. The overall effect is to create an image of a cosmic rite, in which time is no longer under our control. The wealth of timbres and the deluge of tonal levels hurtles the listener from one reality to the next at breakneck speed.
The Fourth Symphony “In Memoria di Michelangelo” was awarded a State Prize in 1976. The work is a tribute by the composer to Michelangelo, the 500th anniversary of whose birth fell in 1975. The symphony this time uses bells to accompany the rising and falling of the various themes, this time pacified by the celesta.
The Fifth Symphony has filled out a great deal compared with its predecessors and is reminiscent of the film music of Prokofiev and Shostakovich. In this symphony, instead of bells and celesta in the 1st and 4th, we hear a harpsichord carrying on the function of relief to the unending energy of tragedy.
Recommended highly, particularly if you cannot find the earlier Olympia issues.
John Phillips
MusicWeb, May 2005
This Kancheli disc is one of a series of twenty CDs freshly packaged in new slip-cases to mark Ondine’s twentieth anniversary. The originals have been selected from the company’s substantial back catalogue.
Largo is clearly a favoured tempo-mood marking for Georgian composer Giya Kancheli. Both Symphonies 4 and 5 and the second movement of the First Symphony carry this marking.
These are all very compact works - all shorter than 21 minutes. The First Symphony is in two movements the first of which is very angular, not particularly dissonant but characterised by discontinuity of incident - sudden protest, barking violence, whispered consolation and strutting arrogant confidence. The voices of Stravinsky and especially Shostakovich are noticeable. The Largo second movement mixes the meditative with enigmatic Ives-like moments and flashes of violence. Introspection and a whispered heart-beat finally carry the day.
The Fourth and Fifth Symphonies of a sequence of seven premiered by the Georgian State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dzhansug Kahidze during 1967-86 represent mature pre-diaspora Kancheli.
The Fourth In Memoria di Michelangeli was written to mark the 500th anniversary of Michelangelo. The message is conveyed in the dominant gentle susurration of the orchestra contrasting with the protesting abrasion of the brass and bell-sonorous chaotic explosions (11:23). The still-small voice will not be silenced. This tension between peace and violence is familiar from Panufnik although in the case of that composer the contrast tends to be between whole movements rather than within movements. The coaxing consolatory message of much of this music impresses and endears. If the sprinkling of quiet percussion over the warm murmur of the strings sometimes suggests Shostakovich’s last symphony the mood is ultimately more seraphic. A phenomenal concentration is demonstrated by DePreist and the orchestra - best heard in the closing moments.
The Fifth is dedicated to the memory of the composer’s parents. The juxtaposition of spleen and balm continues. Calm-imbued music is quietly reflective with the gentle notes of the harpsichord and the harp glinting over a bed of slowly moving meditative strings. This is disrupted by violent onslaughts shuddering, slamming, blasting and then dying away to leave that still-small voice again. The quiet music also carries overtones of both nostalgia and crooning consolation (9:10). The shudders and protest recall Mussorgsky’s sinister imagery supercharged with violence.
The original recordings issued on Melodiya were reissued on Olympia CDs - now long gone. Those discs are very special and are well recorded. They are an authentic and exotic presence in the Kancheli discography. If you see them secondhand don’t miss the opportunity to snap them up but this Finnish recording is outstandingly good and the spirit of these works is unfiltered. The extremes, in which Kancheli is such an adept, are there in full splendour.
Since the late 1980s the composer has spent more time in the West. Symphonies appear to have been left behind. Now his inspiration is gripped by a development of the meditative stream and reflected in the many Kancheli releases on the ECM label. Kancheli is a fascinating character and the symphonies although seemingly abandoned for now are a fascinating presence.
Rob Barnett
MusicWeb, February 2005
The Olympia coupling of Kancheli’s Fourth and Fifth was one of my specially selected recordings in my survey of symphonies in the former Soviet Union. Here now is a rival version of the same coupling but with an entire extra symphony, and at James DePreist’s tempos there would have been room for yet another one.
Not that knocking five minutes off Kakhidze’s timings for the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies seriously violates the music’s meditative spaces. These are perceptive and musicianly performances, and the Helsinki Philharmonic cannot be accused of a lack of sensitivity or precision. There is actually not much to choose either in timing or quality between the rival recordings of the First Symphony, though this piece is more valuable as a document than for its intrinsic merits. What it documents is Kancheli’s gradual discovery of his own voice from its roots in Shostakovich and Bartok.
The Fourth and Fifth Symphonies are masterpieces, however, and the extra trance-like intensity and mystery which the Georgians generate under Kancheli’s colleague and friend Dzansug Kakhidze is immediately evident. At the other extreme the assaults of the full orchestra lack foundation-rocking force in the Helsinkian performances. It doesn’t take a native orchestra to achieve such things – the BBC Symphony Orchestra produced the goods for Alexander Lazarev in a Royal Festival Hall performance of the Fourth Symphony a couple of years ago. But it takes a kind of transcendence of ordinary professional musical instincts.
Recording quality is on the dry side of ideal, whereas both Olympia discs have a little of the opposite drawback. Should those versions ever be deleted (perish the thought, but Olympia do seem to have been doing some weeding out of late) the new Ondine disc will be an admirable makeweight. For myself I am anticipating the day when I can hear these pieces in all their sonic glory from a world-class orchestra.
David Fanning
Gramophone, July 1996