Skip to main content

Night in Galicia

Here's an unusual album. Russian composer Vladimir Martynov was inspired by a poem by the Soviet futurist writer Velimir Khlebnikov to come up with a suite of songs and instrumental interludes bringing together the talents of a classical string ensemble (the Ensemble OPUS POSTH., led by violinist Tatiana Grindenko, who I believe is or was Martynov's wife), and a vocal folk group, the Dmitry Pokrovsky Ensemble. I think I may have ordered the CD directly from the German label that issued it. I'd heard a piece of Martynov's on an album called Silencio, featuring Gidon Kremer (Tatiana Grindenko's ex-husband) and his ensemble, which led me down this particular rabbit-hole.

Night in Galicia - the poem - was apparently based on traditional songs collected in the 19th Century in which "river-maidens, wood-goblins, the wind and other nocturnal creatures show us the laws of their rituals". According to Pokrovsky, they are "a window into the Russian soul". Khlebnikov seems to have been striving to conjure up a sense of primordial folklore. This clearly is all set in the Polish/Ukrainian Galicia, not the Spanish one.

The pieces on the album certainly have a rough-hewn quality with sour harmonies and sawing strings, The opening number, glorying in the title 'A-A-A O-O-O EH-EH-EH EE-EE-EE OO-OO-OO' begins uncompromisingly with chanted vowel sounds which at length come together into acapella song, the strings only joining at the ten-minute mark. Subsequent tracks have titles such as 'Your lips are the black grouse's brow', 'Ever these shades draw me in' and 'Wind, you hear, this deed is frightful!'.


 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All Wrapped Up

Here's another of the compilation cassettes I bought this summer, having taken home a Denon twin-deck hi-fi cassette player from the local charity shop. All Wrapped Up is a 1983 compilation of singles by The Undertones, with Side One filled with A-sides, and B-sides on Side Two. A cassette must be the least desirable medium for such an arrangement, with a long rewind required if one just wants to hear the hits repeatedly. The Undertones were unapologetically provincial and anti-fashionable, with their songs sharply-written slices of life that pointedly avoided any mention of politics, or of the then-continuing violence in their native Derry. My favourite tracks are the obvious choices: 'Teenage Kicks', 'Jimmy Jimmy', 'Here Comes the Summer', 'My Perfect Cousin' & 'Wednesday Week'. Their later singles showed increased sophistication but lack the some of the straightforward charm of their earlier work. The B-sides, not unexpectedly, are mo...
Post a Comment
Read more

In Heat

Having acquired the soubriquet "the walrus of love", Barry White thereafter became something of a figure of fun, something that misled me (and presumably others) into disregarding his music. Only within the last few years have I begun to pay it more attention. After picking up a copy of his '74 album Can't Get Enough last summer, which I loved, I sought out some of the music by his protegés Love Unlimited. From a Discogs seller I ordered well-used copies of Under the Influence of... ('73) and In Heat ('74) for only £6.25. The only unappealing thing about In Heat is its awful title. The songs and the singing are strong; the arrangements rich & warmly enveloping. As one would expect from White, the thematic focus is firmly fixed on amatory matters. The opening number 'Move Me No Mountain' (the only one on the record not written by White) offers a refreshing rebuttal to the kind of lyrical hyperbole in songs like 'Ain't No Mountain High E...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bananas Are Not Created Equal

I knew Jay Berliner's name from his contributions to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and Charles Mingus' The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady , so when I saw this curiously-titled LP at the local charity shop I was intrigued, and bought it even though I had no idea what kind of music it might contain. This was after the days when one could still buy records there for a pound apiece, but I don't think I paid more than a fiver for it. The music turned out to be an all-instrumental blend of funk, soul & jazz. Berliner's virtuoso lead guitar is only one of many attractions here. The band of first-rate session musicians behind him are all uniformly excellent too, and, crucially, sound like they're having a blast. Cornell Dupree's supporting guitar work, while less showy than Berliner's, is beautifully-judged, and the rhythm section is terrific. Arranger/conductor Wade Marcus was no slouch either, judging from the way everything comes together. Two of the funk...
Post a Comment
Read more