Josef Bardanashvili (b. 1948)
Complete Piano Music
Contents listed after review
Ofra Yitzhaki (piano)
rec. 2022, Clairmont Hall, The Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, Tel Aviv University, Israel
TYXart TXA23182 [82]
Josef Bardanashvili was born in 1948 in Batumi, near the southernmost part of the Black Sea coast of what was then Soviet Georgia, and settled in the Mediterranean coastal city of Bat Yam in Israel in 1995. The booklet notes by Israeli pianist Ofra Yitzhaki explain that the influence of each of the cities and their multinational populations can be discerned in his music. He has also drawn influences from Soviet composers, particularly Giya Kancheli, a fellow Georgian composer, and Alfred Schnittke, a Jewish composer from the Volga-German Autonomous Republic in Russia. His music, therefore, is a mix of traditional Jewish melodies and the experimental through the influence of Schnittke’s polystylism and Kancheli’s ‘transparent spirituality’.
Bardanashvili’s Fantasia is a conflation of many influences: Jewish cantoral singing, a Chopinesque lyricism, ancient Georgian folk-singing, a tango-like rhythmic pattern and much besides. It is a great deal to pack into an eight-minute piece. I must confess I cannot discern them all, but it is certainly interesting.
The first of his piano sonatas from 1974 is said to represent the ordinary citizen menaced by the authoritarian state, using a gentle tune met by crashing chords in the opening movement. In the second movement, there are three frighteningly loud thumps to imply the ever-present fear of the fateful knock on the door by the KGB. The final movement is in more relaxed mode, perhaps representing the fact that the individual is relieved it hasn’t yet been his or her turn. The work most certainly manages to convey a sense of menace and cannot be said to be ‘easy listening’. It has to be said that, mercifully, by 1974 when it was composed, the worst fears of such occurrences were a thing of the past – not that it was all plain sailing or that everyone could express themselves freely in public. This encoding of thoughts and fears in music in the former Soviet Union was unarguably a feature during the compositional life of such as Shostakovich. Hidden messages were discerned by an eager public which needed confirmation that they were not alone and that others were able to express these fears in a way they understood. It is interesting that, to my knowledge, that method of communicating with the public the same fears of a threatening State versus common man doesn’t appear to be a feature in today’s Russia, and I wonder why.
Four Short Pieces on Jewish Folksongs, from a year later in 1975, are delightful settings of a discovery the composer made in a Georgian library. They are written in a way that allows children to use them to practise their developing skills at the piano. Simple, yet lyrically tuneful, they convey a happy innocence.
Bardanashvili’s second piano sonata is a more musically satisfying work than the first. I will quote Yitzhaki’s description of the first movement, Vivo, that could hardly be bettered: ‘[it]offers a strong contrast – between a first theme in Bach-Scarlatti style and a second theme echoing a world of Jewish prayer. These two themes develop through a myriad of metamorphoses and become the basis for Beethovenian tempestuousness, Prokofiev-like sarcasm, and laid-back jazz-like virtuosity. They lead to a nostalgic coda, evoking the world of Jewish psalmody’. This description has a laser-like accuracy and every element of it is clearly discernible. It is so powerfully expressed that the listener is almost driven to want to hear it again immediately it comes to an end, even before the second comparatively short Post scriptum. Again, the pianist’s explanation is so telling it deserves quoting – she writes that it ‘emerges as a post scriptum – a philosophical afterthought. Post-romantic in style, it proceeds through the creation and destruction of Mahlerian sonorities, slowly and intimately reflecting on all that has happened’. There is no doubt that the second sonata is a work I will often return to; its powerful expressiveness is totally compelling.
Bardanashvili’s long-time association with writing music for films and the theatre (over 120 works) are explored next in his Five Theater and Film Sketches of 2020. I’ve always found it thoroughly condescending when critics are dismissive of composers of film music as if it is not a worthy occupation for a ‘serious’ composer. Certainly, to encapsulate what is occurring on screen or on stage is no mean feat. His music is so telling and so incisively accurate – and remember very often a composer for this genre has very little time to musically impart the complementary emotions or actions so has to employ an extremely well-honed set of skills. These, Bardanashvili clearly has in spades. Everything from heartfelt emotion to innocent joy, melancholy, the fragility of life, the desperation of the days of the holocaust, are convincingly displayed in these pieces. Far from being frivolous, as some critics are wont to describe such music, they earn a well-deserved niche away from stage and screen as a standalone series of sketches.
Postlude is a thoroughly engaging work that in ten brief minutes expresses a whole gamut of situations and emotions. Once again, it would be counter-productive to try to find any better way of describing it than Ofra Yitzhaki has, so it’s over to her again. ‘Postlude is a short introvert work presenting an internal drama through a wide array of styles. An opening phrase reminiscing a lonely jazz pianist improvising at a piano bar develops into sophisticated baroque-like ornamentations, virtuoso outbursts, and an Andalusian dance. The coexistence of a unifying, persistent dramatic line next to such a myriad of styles creates a curious ambiance of lonely, almost tragic melancholy.’ There is no doubt that when someone has got to know a work sufficiently well to give their interpretation of it musically and so clearly expressed in words, it means they have been truly able to get inside it. The more they understand it, the better their interpretation will be. This piece in Yitzhaki’s hands is a perfect example of how true that is.
The disc’s final offering is Bardanashvili’s Canticum Gradum which describes a human soul trying to find both strength and comfort in today’s difficult world. It is formed by using the prayer Song of Ascent as a starting point. It goes through the torment of the soul’s search for answers to the battles that have to be confronted in life. It reverts to the calm of contemplation once it has come to terms with everyday reality. This is a powerful work, powerfully expressed. It was commissioned by the Tbilisi International Piano Competition. It would be interesting to hear others’ interpretations of it, though I can hardly imagine that Yitzhaki’s is likely to be bettered.
As an introduction to the music of this fascinating composer the selection is perfect. So many varied examples of his indisputable pianistic and compositional skills make the listener eager to hear more, in whatever genre that may be. In addition, the composer couldn’t have had a better interpreter of these works than Ofra Yitzhaki, since there is clearly a synergy between the two of them that comes out in the ringing clarity of these recordings.
Steve Arloff
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Contents:
Fantasia (2004)
Piano Sonata No1 (1974)
Four Short pieces on Jewish Folksongs (1975)
Piano Sonata No 2 (1984)
Five Theater and Film Sketches (2020)
Postlude (1993)
Canticum Gradum (Song of Ascent) (2022)
