COMPOSERS: Kancheli
LABELS: ECM
ALBUM TITLE: Kancheli
WORKS: In I'istesso tempo; Time....and Again; V & V
PERFORMER: Gidon Kremer, Oleg Maisenberg, Kremerata Baltica, Bridge Ensemble
CATALOGUE NO: 461 8182
Time... and Again is typical 1990s
Kancheli, with fragments of melody
in a slow tempo emerging from
silence and retreating immediately.
Bars of melting beauty are followed
by outbursts of violence; tenuous
passages verging on inaudibility
contrasted with full-blooded
Romantic statements. For the music to
work, the players need an acute sense
of timing, and Gidon Kremer and
Oleg Maisenberg have a complete
command of the flow of events,
paying as much attention to silence as to sound. In V & V, Kancheli sets
Kremer against a prerecorded voice
and a string orchestra. There’s more
continuity here, but the music still
has only a tenuous presence: climaxes
are occasionally won, but they’re cut
off abruptly, and the whole piece
has the crazy logic of a beautiful
but disturbing dream. Again, the
performances inhabit this world with
absolute confidence.
The Bridge Ensemble is just as
sympathetic in the piano quartet
In l’istesso tempo: in some ways,
a more conventional piece in
its development, but one with
disturbing undercurrents. The
regular pulse is menacing rather than
comforting, and tonality a refuge,
not a certainty. Kancheli’s position
as a powerful and individual voice
is becoming more apparent with
each vividly recorded issue in ECM’s
continuing series. Martin Cotton
Kancheli: In I'istesso tempo; Time....and Again; V & V
Time... and Again is typical 1990s
Kancheli, with fragments of melody
in a slow tempo emerging from
silence and retreating immediately.
Bars of melting beauty are followed
by outbursts of violence; tenuous
passages verging on inaudibility
contrasted with full-blooded
Romantic statements. For the music to
work, the players need an acute sense
of timing, and Gidon Kremer and
Oleg Maisenberg have a complete
command of the flow of events,
Our rating
5
