Giya Kancheli, Chiaroscuro - album review

Download: Chiaroscuro; Twilight

Giya Kancheli

Premiere recordings of new works by Giya Kancheli are always worth hearing, particularly when performed, as here, by his most expressive interpreter Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica ensemble.

On “Twilight”, a meditation on mortality written while the composer was recuperating from life-threatening illness, Kancheli’s slow recovery is suggested by the gradual admission of light, and by the support of second violinist Patricia Kopachinskaja.

Allied with glistening piano notes, one violin traces a high line while the other circles around its mid-section, like a figure skater held aloft by their partner; though the conclusion is less decisively optimistic, drifting off, as with so many of Kancheli’s compositions, into a lingering mist.

The earlier “Chiaroscuro”, a compelling musical reflection on light and shade, could easily represent the same recovery: darker tones of tympani are balanced with luminous tuned percussion.