Peteris Vasks zum 80sten – Von Klaus Gehrke
https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/peteris-vasks-zum-80sten-100.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMrFRIPpsdY
#80Geburtstag #DistantLight #DLF #MUSIK #NeueMusik #PeterisVasksMerel Vercammen and Maya Fridman release CD Rejoice: hushed music performed with passion
With their latest album, violinist Merel Vercammen and cellist Maya Fridman once again underline their reputation as adventurous musicians who prefer to avoid the beaten track. The album is named after the sonata for violin and cello of the same name composed by Sofia Gubaidulina in 1981. Angel was written for the same combination by Ukrainian composer Maxim Shalygin (2020); Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks adds a choir to this in Plainscapes (2002).
Vasks is the only one who still resides in his native country. Gubaidulina moved to Germany immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union; Shalygin has been living in the Netherlands since 2010. Their different homelands are certainly no political allies, but the composers share a spiritual inclination that is often experienced as Eastern European. Vasks and Shalygin in particular show some affinity with Arvo Pärt with their elongated lines and tranquil soundscapes; Gubaidulina defies comparison. A true sound sorceress, she manages to extract so many nuances from a single note that one remains glued to one’s seat.
This also applies to Rejoice! The work has five movements, named after aphorisms on joy and introspection by the Ukrainian religious philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda. The sonata opens with sparse, slowly gliding strokes in the highest registers of the violin, now ending in a small flourish, then in a cautiously rising or falling second. The violin and cello engage in a compelling duet in which thoughtful pizzicati, fiery glissandi and loudly swelling tones gradually condense into a tangle of swirling eddies, evoking the atmosphere of a swarm of mosquitoes.
A line from the violin, that seems to be shimmering in the heat, meanders from low to high on a bed of droning sounds from the cello, which unexpectedly shoots up in pitch. At about the golden section, in ‘Rejoice, rabbi’, the violin plays a cheerful tune that then descends into a depth of stillness in a series of steps played with bouncing bow. Vercammen spins stratospheric flourishes and rustlings above Fridman’s deep, sonorous lines, which seem to want to anchor her to the earth like a good-natured mother. The cello ends this mesmerizing sonata with a few firm strokes and veiled pizzicati.
Shalygin’s Angel also exudes a tranquil atmosphere, with fragile violin lines against a drone of double stops on the cello. Sudden silences, slowly repeated notes and stepwise motifs string together to form a passionate, heavenward-reaching argument, which concludes with a series of ascending glissandi that sound like pleas.
In Plainscapes, inspired by the vast plains and impressive landscapes of his homeland, Vasks treats us to a three-part impression of the seasons in which the choir acts as accompanist to the two instruments. Conducted by Daniel Reuss, they sing subdued, softly undulating vocalises against ethereal lines from violin and cello. The elegiac atmosphere is sometimes broken by faster and louder figurations from both strings and singers, though the overall sound remains strikingly homogeneous.
During a fierce passage by the strings, the voices of the choir fan out further and further, and the solo violin even seems to be getting drowned out for a second. Then the singers break into jubilant flute motifs, like chirping birds at the break of day. The mood changes momentarily, with a loud, dissonant cry of fear from the choir, whereafter the ethereal tranquillity of the beginning returns. Plainscapes ends with singers and instrumentalists unanimously glissandoing upwards, into the heavens.
Rejoice! is an album to be cherished. Not only do Vercammen and Fridman master the smallest subtleties of their instruments, but Daniel Reuss and Cappella Amsterdam, bring the most delicate inflections of their parts to life with verve, as well. The recording technique is equally flawless, with a spaciousness that perfectly matches the sacred atmosphere of the music.
#CappellaAmsterdam #MayaFridman #MerelVercammen #PēterisVasks #SofiaGubaidulina
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