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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!'.


 

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