Musik aus Armenien

The Spirit of Armenia
Recordings since 1979
e
G.I.Gurdjieff
Tigran Mansurian
Komitas Vardapet
Kim Kashkashian
Tigran Hamasyan
Levon Eskenian
Yerevan State Chamber Choir
Armenian Chamber Choir
Anja Lechner
Vassilis Tsabropoulos
François Couturier
Patricia Kopatchinskaja
The Hilliard Ensemble
Jan Garbarek
Keith Jarrett
T igran Hamasyan
Yerevan St ate Chamber Choir
Harut yun Topik yan
Luys i Luso
ECM
Armenian sacred music from
the 5th to the 20th centuries
arranged for piano and voices
by Tigran Hamasyan
Tigran Hamasyan
piano, prepared piano
Yerevan State Chamber Choir
Harutyun Topikyan conductor
Release: September 2015
ECM 2447
CD 473 2383
New Releases
Music by Komitas
Levon Eskenian director
Emmanuel Hovhannisyan
duduk, pku, zurna
Armen Ayvazyan kamancha
Avag Margaryan pogh, zurna
Aram Nikoghosyan oud
Davit Avagyan tar
Mesrop Khalatyan dap, dhol
Vladimir Papikyan santur, voice
Meri Vardanyan kanon
Norayr Gapoyan duduk, bass duduk
Eduard Harutyunyan
tmbuk, cymbal, kshots, burvar, bell
Release: October 2015
ECM 2451
CD 473 2246
KOMI TA S
THE GURDJIEFF ENSEMBLE
LEVON ESKENIAN
ECM
It was at Manfred Eicher’s suggestion
that we went on to prepare material for
a recording concentrating on Komitas – indeed, for two recordings: one
devoted to piano music and this one
of arrangements for traditional instruments. Komitas had been an important
reference for Thomas de Hartmann
when preparing Gurdjieff’s music for
solo piano, and Komitas’ writings and
music had influenced our own approach to Gurdjieff. So it was logical
to develop the association further, particularly as there is a history of Komitas and Gurdjieff related recordings at
ECM, beginning with Keith Jarrett’s
version of Gurdjieff’s Sacred Hymns
and Tigran Mansurian’s approach to
Komitas on Hayren.
Music, its forms and rituals, has the
power to bring us close to distant civilizations. Armenia offers a special case:
a sacred culture that was preserved at
its fullest flowering through the work of
one man, the scholar-monk Soghomon
Soghomonian (1869-1935), known under his religious name as Komitas, to
which is sometimes appended the title
Vardapet (archimandrite).
Komitas was many things: composer, priest, collector and arranger
of folk songs, choir-master, singer,
rigorous researcher into khaz, the
neumatic system developed in Armenia between the ninth century and
the fifteenth. His musical education
took place at the seminary attached to
Echmiadzin Cathedral, the Holy See of
the Armenian Apostolic Church, and
in Berlin, where his teachers included
Richard Schmidt, the theorist Heinrich
Bellermann, the prominent folklorist
Max Friedlander and Oskar Fleischer,
a specialist in European medieval music. Acquainted with western classical
music as well as the Armenian tradition, he also had a deep understanding of Middle Eastern and more distant
Asian musical cultures, which helped
him understand and define what was
unique to Armenian music.
While living in Armenia he gathered
thousands of folk songs, sacred songs
and instrumental melodies, to notate
which at speed he often used the Armenian system, though he also made
arrangements for piano, solo voice or
chorus in standard western notation.
In his compositions he was able to
combine Armenian modality with aspects of the western classical tradition
and thereby establish practical models
and a theoretical basis for the development of a specifically Armenian classical music.
This recording indicates the breadth
of his achievement and something of
his methods. His practice was to select
the most interesting variants of traditional melodies and rhythmic patterns
while remaining true to the original
style and spirit, which partly accounts
for the unusual character of his piano
writing in solo pieces and accompaniments.
In an effort to go more deeply into
the music and its interpretative potential, as well as to recreate the sounds
Komitas encountered, the pieces are
here arranged for traditional Armenian
instruments, without altering Komitas’s structures and details. Some of
the instruments date back to antiquity,
and it has been necessary to build replicas of those no longer in use.
Komitas preserved several dance melodies as piano pieces, and included in
the manuscripts of his Yot Par (Seven
Dances) and Msho shoror instructions
for how to imitate the styles of tradi-
tional instruments on the piano. He
would constantly revise these dances
to make the conventional notation
more closely fit what was particular in
his source material.
Many of these dances and their
music reach back to Armenia’s pagan
time, long before the state adoption of
Christianity in 301. Komitas wrote that:
“The pagans had two major types of
dances, sacred and secular, that have
kept their original functions to the
present day” – though he noted also
that “religious traces still survive in
folk or secular dances.”
‘Dance’, he further observed, ‘is
perhaps one of the most significant
manifestations of human existence.
It expresses the particular traits of a
nation, especially its customs and the
level of its civilization. For through its
manifold movements dance unconsciously exposes the workings of the
spirit.’
Levon Eskenian
Luys i Luso (Light from Light) is for me
a musical world in which Armenian
sacred music tradition, contemporary
classical composition and improvisation come together. The repertoire
on this album ranges from 5th century sharakans by Mesrop Mashtots to
early 20th century music of Komitas,
addressed through diverse compositional approaches and arrangements.
For me it has been a challenge to explore the mystery of Armenian sacred
music and to create polyphonic arrangements for melodies by tradition
monodic.
In all these arrangements the piano
parts are never written out. There are
ideas for the structure of the piano
parts but these are subject to change,
bringing freedom and improvisation to
notated classical composition and the
sacred music tradition.
Tigran Hamasyan
The arrangement of “Ankanim Arachi
Qo”, the 5th century hymn by Mashtots, takes a traditional approach: there
is the drone, the monodic chant, and
the piano creating harmonies around
the drone.
In “Ov Zarmanali” the idea was to take
a simple A/B form canto by Nerses
Shnorhali (12c) and make it into a
larger composition, almost like a concerto for piano and voices, built upon
Shnorhali’s melody.
In “Bazum en Qo gtutyunqd”, another
“repentance hymn” by Mashtots, the
arrangement for voices is polyphonic
as opposed to “Ankanim Arachi Qo”
where the words are sung as they
would be in the liturgy. For the second part of this piece I have taken the
words of the hymn and composed a
melody in the same mode as the original melody, although the piano part
revolves around a different subtonic, a
fifth down from the tonic sung by the
choir.
Most of the pieces on this album tell
stories. “Surb Astvats” (Holy God),
also known as “The Holy Trinity”, has
three different verses traditionally
sung in three different periods in the
year: one verse refers to the Nativity,
another to the Crucifixion, the last to
the Resurrection. All three verses of
this medieval hymn are combined in
Luys i Luso to represent the story of
Christ.
Another storytelling piece is “Patriarchal Ode”. This ode by Komitas is dedicated to the Mother See of Etchmiadzin in the person of Mkrtich Khrimian (Catholicos of all Armenians). In
this arrangement the ode illustrates
the history of the Armenian church,
the struggles and compassion of Father Khrimian, the world in which he
lived, and our memory of him today.
Further Releases
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Music of Komitas and
Tigran Mansurian
Hayren
Kim Kashkashian
Robyn Schulkowsky
Tigran Mansurian
Released 2003
ECM New Series 1754
CD 461 8312
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Tigran Mansurian
String Quartets
Rosamunde Quartett
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Released 2005
ECM New Series 1905
CD 476 3052
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Tigran Mansurian
Ars Poetica
Robert Mlkeyan
Armenian Chamber Choir
Released 2006
ECM New Series 1895
CD 476 3070
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Tigran Mansurian
Monodia
Kim Kashkashian
Leonidas Kavakos
Jan Garbarek
The Hilliard Ensemble
Christoph Poppen
Münchener Kammerorchester
Released 2004
ECM New Series 1850Ð51
2-CD set 472 7842
Tigran Mansurian
Quasi parlando
e
P a t r i c i a Ko p a t c h i n s k a j a , v i o l i n
A n j a L e c h n e r, v i o l o n c e l l o
Amsterdam Sinfoniet ta
Candida Thompson
Tigran Mansurian
Quasi Parlando
Patricia Kopatchinskaja
Anja Lechner
Amsterdam Sinfonietta
Candida Thompson
Released 2014
ECM New Series 2323
CD 481 0667
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Levon Eskenian
Music of Georges I. Gurdjieff
The Gurdjieff Folk
Instrument Ensemble
Released 2011
ECM 2236
CD 277 1913
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Anja Lechner
Fr a n ç o i s C o u t u r i e r
e
M o d e r a to c a n t a b i l e
Moderato Cantabile
Anja Lechner
François Couturier
Released 2014
ECM New Series 2367
CD 481 0992
Ko m i t a s
Gurdjief f
Mompou
Chants, Hymns & Dances
Anja Lechner
Vassilis Tsabropoulos
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Released 2004
ECM New Series 1888
CD 981 9613
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G. I. Gurdjieff
Sacred Hymns
Keith Jarrett
Released 1980
ECM 1174
CD 829 1222
Kim Kashkashian
Neharót
Betty Olivero
Tigran Mansurian
Eitan Steinberg
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Released 2009
ECM New Series 2065
CD 476 3281
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In 2016 ECM will release an album
by Lusine Grigoryan playing
Komitas: Piano Compositions
(Seven Songs, Msho Shoror,
Seven Dances, Pieces for Children,
Toghik), as well as Atmosphères,
Reflections on Armenian Folk
Songs featuring Tigran Hamasyan,
Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset,
Jan Bang.
Photograph of Armenian monastery
of Surb Karapet (the Holy Precursor,
St. John the Baptist) in 30 km
northwest of Mush, in present-day
eastern Turkey, before its destruction
in 1915. Photo: Vartan A. Hampikian
Front Cover: Dance in front of the
Surb Karapet Monastery
Photo: Bodil Biørn (1905)
Back Cover: Fragment of the wall
photographed by Vahan Stepanyan
Photo of Komitas by courtesy of The
Charents Museum of Literature and
Arts, Yerevan
Musician photos by Vahan Stepanyan,
Garegin Aghabekyan, Peter Laenger,
Petra Goldmann
www.ecmrecords.com