Giya Kancheli is one of a number of Soviet composers, now in their fifties, whose creative instincts were formed during the years of the Khrushchev thaw, and whose creative maturity coincided with the last three symphonies of Shostakovich, a surge of interest in Stravinsky and an influx of selected trends from the western avant-garde. Recent CD releases have given us the chance to see what Schnittke, Tishchenko, Gubaidulina and Part made of all this, and Kancheli would seem to be just as interesting a personality—not so prolific or versatile as the two for- mer, and not so ascetically withdrawn as the two latter, but his imagination flourishes just like theirs on unlikely stylistic syntheses. This first instalment of his symphonies is a valuable and important release.
Kancheli is a Georgian. He was born (in 1935), educated and, for the greater part of his life, has been professionally active in the capital Tbilisi. The Third Symphony of 1970 incorporates a fragment of Georgian folk-song, prayerfully intoned at the start by a solo tenor voice (a weird, disembodied timbre on this recording). This returns at various junctures, like an emblem of permanence in a disorientating, at times hostile, environment. Opposed to it are Stravinskian cluster-harmonies barked out in the brass, and remorseless footsteps in the massed strings—all strong ideas, patched together at first in a kind of mosaic.
The Sixth Symphony of 1980 sets out in broadly similar fashion, with a hoarse sul ponticello viola melody as the symbol of permanence, and tiny flecks of flute, harp and harpsichord as the first ingredients in the mosaic, before full strings pile in like a sudden rush of blood to the head.
Kancheli hardly ever dwells on an idea for more than a few seconds, and the rate of progress is predominantly slow and generously endowed with silence. It seems an unpromising way of going about symphonic composition, especially as both works fall into unbroken 30-minute spans. But there is a real sense of concentration rather than short-windedness, of tense expectation rather than inertia. The ideas constantly manage to suggest a depth of experience transcending their physical dimensions, and the musical interest is more successfully sustained than, for instance, in Sallinen's recently recorded Washington Mosaics (Finlandia/Conifer (CD) FACD370, 10/89)—admittedly not the Finn's greatest piece, but one of the few symphonies to attempt this kind of construction.
By the later stages of Kancheli's Third Symphony a fairly massive debt to Stravinsky has accrued—the post-Petrushka diatonic clusters and post-Rite of Spring rhythms are remarkably close to Steve Martland. The Sixth Symphony, by contrast, is assailed by full-blown Shostakovichian Angst, in a raw, self-battering scherzo and a terrifying apocalypse complete with strokes on the anvil (I think—no score to hand). The impressive conclusions are respectively stoical and benumbed.
For some listeners a little of this soul-searching goes a long way; for others, myself included, it is part and parcel of facing up to the very bitterest of realities—and done with this degree of imagination and control it is stirring stuff.
For all its high drama Kancheli's orchestral writing is fundamentally rather restrained, and the performances have none of the rough edges or awkwardness one might have anticipated. Unfortunately Georgian technology must have had an off-day in the Third Symphony, which comes out from first note to last a whole tone sharp. Thrilling top Gs from the horns and a stratospheric top D from the piano are all well and good, but I would rather have heard the music as played. But don't let that deter you if you are the least bit interested in Soviet music or in discovering a genuinely distinctive symphonic voice in our times.'