{"id":3179,"date":"2009-09-29T12:33:53","date_gmt":"2009-09-29T19:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=3179"},"modified":"2013-02-07T19:56:20","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T03:56:20","slug":"coming-up-cd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/29\/coming-up-cd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"coming up: cd review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"neharot-kashkashian-ecm\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m hoping that on Wednesday<\/span> this weekend I’ll have a full review up for a wonderful, gorgeous CD of new music for viola.\u00a0 The disc is published by ECM New Series<\/a>, and is entitled Nehar\u00f3t<\/em>, and it features that miraculous violist Kim Kashkashian playing music of Betty Olivero, Tigran Mansurian, and Eitan Steinberg.\u00a0 What I’ve listened to so far is utterly beautiful and profoundly moving.\u00a0 I’ll give it a hearty “buy” rating for now, and elaborate in the full review, due shortly.<\/p>\n

Here’s some background on the works featured on the recording, from ECM’s website:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a certain way the genesis of this record mirrors life\u201d, says Kim Kashkashian. \u201cYou can’t always make plans, you can’t foresee how things work together. Sometimes, important events just come to you, element by element, piece by piece.\u201d Following \u201cAsturiana\u201d, Kashkashian’s recital of Spanish and Argentinian songs transcribed for viola and piano, \u201cNehar\u00f3t\u201d is one of her most personal recorded statements to date. It offers a carefully composed programme that reveals underlying but all the more multi-faceted connections between three contemporary composers from Israel and Armenia. Their five pieces respectively based on traditional laments of the Near East, Armenian chant and Hasidic melody once again emphasise Kashkashian’s extraordinary vocal expressiveness and deeply affecting tone. \u201cWhat we hear in this music touches off resonances below the level of our acquired expeience\u201d, writes Paul Griffiths in his liner notes. \u201cSinging these songs, in a hybrid register that embraces male and female, Kashkashian’s viola sings for us all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Betty Olivero started work on \u201cNehar\u00f3t Nehar\u00f3t\u201d in response to the suffering and pain caused by the war in Lebanon in 2006. Olivero’s hypnotic lament for viola, accordion, percussion, two string ensembles and tape is a distinctly contemporary piece that draws on allusions to Kurdish and north African songs, traditional oriental music and Monteverdi. The instrument’s singing abilities come even more to the fore in Tigran Mansurian’s \u201cThree Arias (Sung out the window facing Mount Ararat)\u201d which articulate the Armenian people’s longing for the holy mountain beyond the border. \u201cRava Deravin\u201d by Israeli Eitan Steinberg is based on a setting of a poem by one of the greatest traditional kabbalists. As the composer says, Kashkashian \u201cmanages to cry the prayer from within the strings, to murmur the sacred text with no words\u201d.<\/p>\n

The first seed for the project appeared when Kashkashian heard Etty Ben-Zaken perform a vocal piece by Israeli composer Eitan Steinberg, the singer\u2019s husband, in Boston. She was so impressed by Ben-Zaken\u2019s combination of singing, recitation and theatrical action that she asked the composer whether a comparably eloquent and emphatic solo part could be transferred to the viola. Steinberg suggested \u201cRava Deravin\u201d which originally had been conceived for wordless voice and a mixed ensemble. In accordance with Kashkashian\u2019s timbral and coloristic ideas he subsequently transcribed it for the more homogenous sonorities of solo viola and string quartet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met both Steinberg and Betty Olivero through the composer Osvaldo Golijov with whom I had spoken about my interest in music employing the stringed instrument as a human voice\u201d, says Kashkashian. \u201cWhen Betty Olivero received a commission for a new piece from New York\u2019s cultural center 92nd Street Y she immediately suggested to write something for me. I played a lot of Armenian songs for her. However, she didn\u2019t choose any of these but rather adapted her writing to the general character of my playing while using completely different historical sources. As it finally turned out the first performance took place in Amsterdam with the New York premiere following only one year later.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most recent piece on the album is \u201cThree Songs\u201d by Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian with whom Kashkashian has frequently collaborated for many years and whose works she recorded on exemplary ECM productions such as \u201cHayren\u201d (released in 2003) and \u201cMonodia\u201d (2004). The present recording stems from the Boston world premiere in May 2008. Kashkashian: \u201cTigran himself has this predilection for song and the spoken word and, when composing, he identifies very closely with the musician he is writing for. But I think this piece epitomises a pure essence of his music, something that emanates from the very soul of his personality and transcends any instrumental character.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m hoping that on Wednesday this weekend I’ll have a full review up for a wonderful, gorgeous CD of new music for viola.\u00a0 The disc is published by ECM New Series, and is entitled Nehar\u00f3t, and it features that miraculous violist Kim Kashkashian playing music of Betty Olivero, Tigran Mansurian, and Eitan Steinberg.\u00a0 What I’ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[148,183,115,168,135,22],"tags":[1879,576,3660],"class_list":["post-3179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-contemporary","category-music","category-recordings-music","category-soloists-recitals","category-viola","tag-kim-kashkashian","tag-recording","tag-viola"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-Ph","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12981,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2013\/09\/15\/20-years-since-aldeburgh\/","url_meta":{"origin":3179,"position":0},"title":"20 years since Aldeburgh","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I was looking at my part to Hindemith's Der Schwanendreher (a concerto for viola and orchestra) when I noticed the inscription I'd written at the top of the viola part (I have this habit of writing dates\/places of performances of pieces at the top of the part). It was nearly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "viola"","block_context":{"text":"viola","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/instruments\/viola\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/9765952635_652b003e66_o.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/9765952635_652b003e66_o.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/9765952635_652b003e66_o.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/9765952635_652b003e66_o.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/9765952635_652b003e66_o.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/9765952635_652b003e66_o.jpg?resize=1400%2C800 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3270,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/15\/probing-the-psyche-of-the-oppressed-through-music\/","url_meta":{"origin":3179,"position":1},"title":"probing the psyche of the oppressed through music","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been living with the new Kim Kashkashian recording entitled Nehar\u00f3t for some time now, and find its title track Nehar\u00f3t Nehar\u00f3t (by the Israeli composer Betty Olivero, b.1954) to be one of the most affecting new pieces of music that I've encountered in the past decade. \u00a0I liken its\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"neharot-kashkashian-ecm","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/neharot-200x198.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":627,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/12\/30\/violist-kim-kashkashian-on-npr\/","url_meta":{"origin":3179,"position":2},"title":"violist kim kashkashian on npr","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Arguably one of the great violists of the 20th\/21st century, Kim Kashkashian has made many critically-acclaimed recordings (almost all on ECM New Series) of both the standard repertoire and new works, many written especially for her. Born in Detroit, she was a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Md.,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":231,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/03\/02\/the-end-of-an-era\/","url_meta":{"origin":3179,"position":3},"title":"the end of an era","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I received word this afternoon that my old viola has found a new owner. Some people like to name their instruments, I never got into that. Now that I've learned of the sale of my first viola, I wish I had named her (for lack of a name, I'll settle\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6495,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/05\/27\/mozart-grumiaux-perfection\/","url_meta":{"origin":3179,"position":4},"title":"mozart + grumiaux = perfection","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 As I was listening to a portion of the Kairos Ensemble rehearsing for tonight's upcoming benefit concert for Portland's Phame Academy, I was struck (again) by just how great Mozarts quintets for strings (two violins, two violas, and cello) are. They are doing his great D major, K. 593\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/mozart-01.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":74,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/09\/06\/the-william-primrose-legacy-contd\/","url_meta":{"origin":3179,"position":5},"title":"the william primrose legacy (cont’d)","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"If you're into hearing state-of-the-art viola playing, look no further than the newly-released second solo album of William Primrose transcriptions played by Roberto Diaz and pianist Robert Koenig. Diaz's first CD was a collection of works by Henri Vieuxtemps, also with pianist Robert Koenig. The Vieuxtemps CD was performed on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}