a r t i s t : Tigran Mansurian
t i t l e : Ars Poetica
d a t e : 2006
l a b e l : ECM New Series
g e n r e : Classical
r l s. d a t e : Nov/2006
t r a c k s : 10
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 60,1 MB
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Armenian Chamber Choir
Conducted by Robert Mlkeyan
'I love language for its own sake', Tigran Mansurian recently
confided in an interview. ôMost of all the Armenian tongue, of
course - its dialects, prose and poetry, whether modern or
ancient. I'm interested in language from every angle,
especially its phonetics.ö What fascinates him about Armenian
is its wealth of consonants, which, as he puts it, ôclash with
a force all their ownö. Accordingly, when he first approached
the lyric poetry of Yegishe Charents he was initially inspired
by its sound and rhythm. He set the poems syllable by syllable
and kept his choral writing mainly homophonic and
straightforward. The modes on which he builds his melodic
lines are characterised by augmented intervals, underscoring
the sound of the language.
Ars Poetica is the largest choral work that this great
Armenian composer has yet brought forth. This world premiere
recording is the fourth of ECM New SeriesÆ highly acclaimed
Mansurian releases. Not only is it a tribute to the towering
figure of twentieth-century Armenian poetry, it pays homage to
the language and literature of the country itself. This may
explain why Mansurian has entrusted Charents' poetry to a
chamber chorus rather than a solo voice, as might seem natural
in view of its intimate and highly personal inflection. Yet
the generic term 'concerto' is just an approximation to its
true essence: Ars Poetica unites the features of a song cycle
with those of a choral cantata while avoiding elements of the
traditional instrumental concerto.
Tcharents' poems, Mansurian feels, have entered the collective
consciousness of the Armenian people. He has studied them
closely since adolescence: ôAll in all, they form something
akin to an epic. Each æportraitÆ has the potential to rise
above an individual statement and become a collective
pronouncement.ö This has something to do with the artistic
quality of the poetry itself, which, regardless of all
linguistic barriers, is to be seen as one of the great
literary achievements of the 20th century. But it also has to
do with the poet's symbolic significance to the spiritual life
of Armenia. Born in 1897 in present-day Turkey, Tcharents
joined the resistance to Turkish rule while still in his
teens. In 1916 he began to study literature in Moscow and soon
became an ardent Bolshevik. He fought in the Red Army against
Russian and Armenian nationalists from 1918 to 1921. Later he
became a diplomat, founded an influential group of poets,
translated major works of world literature into Armenian and
published poems and novels. One of his poems of the 1930s, The
Message, became famous virtually overnight. But the rΘgime
felt that it harboured 'nationalist' strains: Tcharents was
arrested and died in a Yerevan prison in 1937 under
unexplained circumstances, probably as a result of a hunger
strike. Only after Stalin's death in 1953 were his writings
again allowed to be published.
For Ars Poetica Mansurian selected ten of Tcharents' poems
dating between 1915 and 1936 and arranged them into four
groups. Although each group is devoted to an overarching
theme, all the poems deal subliminally with the relation
between life and literature. This is quite obviously the case
in poems such as Fear, where shades of Baudelaire, Verlaine,
Poe and Heine crop up as nocturnal phantasms, or in Japanese
Tankas with its correlation to the five-line, 31-syllable
verse form of classical Japanese poetry. Parts I, II and III,
each consisting of three pieces, follow an A-B-A formal
design, with two fast movements flanking a slower piece or
vice versa. Part IV, which is much longer than the others,
makes use of a single poem to function as a pessimistic
finale. Its last lines seem to say that no work of literature
can hope to withstand the power of Death:
"That which I was, which belonged to me,
Will never come to life in any book,
In no written book around the world,
In no book, in no bookà "
Ars Poetica was recorded in Saghmosavank Monastery, Armenia.
Tigran Mansurian was born in Beirut to Armenian parents in
1939. In 1947 he returned to Yerevan with his family. In 1960
he enrolled at the State Komitas Conservatory where he soon
began teaching and eventually became its director in 1990.
Soon he stepped down from this position to focus on his
compositions. Today he is regarded as Armenia's leading
composer, with a large oeuvre encompassing vocal pieces,
chamber music and orchestral works. Among the musicians who
have performed his music are Alexei Lubimov, Boris Berman,
Oleg Kagan and Natalia Gutman.
In 2003 ECM published Hayren (ECM New Series 1754) with music
by Komitas and Mansurian. It was followed in 2004 by the
Grammy nominated double-album Monodia (ECM New Series 1850-51)
featuring Kim Kashkashian, Jan Garbarek, Leonidas Kavakos, the
Hilliard Ensemble and the Munich Chamber Orchestra conducted
by Christoph Poppen. In autumn 2005 his First and Second
String Quartets of the 1980s and his Testament of 2004 were
issued in a recording by Munich's Rosamunde Quartet (ECM New
Series 1905).
Founded in 2000, the Armenian Chamber Chorus has a repertoire
ranging from Gabrieli to Vasks and from Bach to Schnittke.
Under the direction of its principal conductor Robert Mlkeyan,
this 35-voice chorus quickly emerged as a front-rank ensemble
with a special focus on present-day Armenian music. In recent
years it has given premiΦres of works by Haladjian and
Hairapetian as well as Tigran Mansurian's Ars Poetica. It has
also introduced many important choral compositions by Britten,
Schnittke and Vasks to Armenian audiences. In 2001 the
Armenian Chamber Chorus gave its London dΘbut. A concert tour
of St. Petersburg and Moscow is scheduled for 2006.
Robert Mlkeyan studied choral and orchestral conducting at St.
Petersburg Conservatory and the Komitas Conservatory in
Yerevan. While still a student he founded several choruses and
specialised in premiΦre performances of works by young
Armenian composers. In 1992 he was appointed artistic director
and principal conductor of the Symphony Orchestra and Chamber
Chorus of Gyumri, the second-largest city in Armenia. He has
appeared at many festivals and performed in major European
concert halls.
CD-package includes an illustrated 24-page booklet with an
introductory note by the composer and the song texts in
English.
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01-Three Night Songs-Night [04:41]
02-Three Night Songs-Insomnia [03:13]
03-Three Night Songs-Anxiety [05:15]
04-Three Portraits of Women-Your Enamel Profile [02:49]
05-Three Protraits of Women-The Rainbow [02:49]
06-Three Portraits of Women-Manon Lescaut [02:49]
07-Three Autumn Songs-The Wind [06:25]
08-Three Autumn Songs-Japanese Tankas [02:46]
09-Three Autumn Songs-Song Of Autumn [02:21]
10-And Silence Descends [13:36]
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46:44 min