Kirill Gerstein (with Thomas Adès, Ruzan Mantashyan, and Katia Skanavi): Debussy / Komitas: Music in Time of War
Myrios Classics

Music in Time of War, a combination recording-and-book project curated by pianist Kirill Gerstein and edited by musicologists Eva Zöllner and Richard Evidon and French translator Jean-Claude Poyet, qualifies as a major event. Its musical content, two CDs of material by Komitas Vardapet (1869-1935) and Claude Debussy (1862-1918), is in itself compelling, but in being housed within a deluxe, 172-page hardcover book featuring in-depth essays (in English, German, and French), photographs, paintings, and musical score excerpts, the project impresses as one of the year's most striking products. Credit for the cover and book design extends to Knut Schötteidreier and for the front cover concept Peter Mendelsund, the latter a renowned designer but also author of seven books, including 2014's terrific What We See When We Read. The expense incurred in presenting Music in Time of War had to have been considerable, but the result is a thing of beauty.

In terms of musical content, the first disc presents Debussy's 12 Études (1915) and Komitas's Armenian Dances (1916), both performed by Gerstein alone. On the second disc, he performs five late Debussy pieces solo but elsewhere is accompanied: on Debussy's En blanc et noir (1915), he's joined by Thomas Adès and on the French composer's 6 Épigraphes antiques (1914-15) Katia Skanavi. Soprano Ruzan Mantashyan partners with Gerstein for performances of Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis (1897-98) and his last song “Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus de maison” (1915) and Komitas's Armenian Songs. 140 minutes of exceptionally performed music makes for a substantial aural component of the project.

Internationally renowned, Gerstein's appeared on concert stages worldwide and has issued recent recordings featuring works by Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Adès, and Busoni. His collaborators bring impressive credentials of their own to the project: as the award-winning composer of the operas Powder Her Face and The Exterminating Angel plus countless other works for solo instruments, chamber groups, and orchestras, Adès requires no introduction; Skanavi's discography includes albums of material by Chopin, Schumann, Rachmaninoff, and Stravinsky; the Armenian soprano Mantashyan initiated her studies at the Komitas State Conservatory in Yerevan and has sung at London's Royal Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Hamburg State Opera, and the Paris Opéra.

Gerstein is also represented in the book by, first, an illuminating “Foreword” that connects the musical works to their real-world contexts and, secondly, in a conversation with Heinz Holliger. In between are three articles that further illuminate the musical dimension of the project and give it a clear socio-historical context: Annette Becker's “The Great War: To kill/destroy/yet create”; Artur Avanesov's “To the Stars and Back: The Life and Work of Komitas Vardapet”; and Khatchig Mouradian's “Beaming Pillars: The Armenian Genocide and Revival.” Here too the contributors are a distinguished group: Holliger's well-known, of course, as a Swiss composer, oboist, and conductor; Becker's a French historian who's written extensively on the two World Wars and the devastating impact they've had on peoples' lives; Mouradian lectures in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University and is the author of the award-winning book The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915-1918; and Avanesov is one of the major Armenian composers of our time, as well as a pianist, musicologist, and educator.

What, one might ask, prompted the decision to pair Komitas and Debussy? The reasons are many: not only did the latter deeply admire the music of his Armenian counterpart, both artists were profoundly affected by supra-musical events, Komitas by the Armenian genocide and Debussy by WWI. While the former did live seventeen years longer than Debussy, the writing of Komitas's final pieces occurred at about the same time as the French composer's (Komitas suffered a debilitating nervous breakdown in response to the genocide that led to him living out the remainder of his life in a psychiatric hospital in Paris). Whereas his Armenian Dances were published in their final form in 1916, all but one of the Debussy works presented by Gerstein and company were created in an incredible outpouring between the years 1914 and 1917, Chansons de Bilitis (1897-98) the outlier. In fact, pieces by the two composers appeared together in 1916 during a benefit concert for the victims of the Armenian genocide, with Komitas's song “Antouni” (Homeless) heard immediately after the premiere performance of Debussy's “Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus de maisons” (Christmas for Children Who Don't Have Homes). Of the two, Komitas has the lower global profile but is revered in his homeland; certainly Music in Time of War will help change that, even if the greater portion of the musical content is Debussy's.

Holliger's comment that Debussy eschews linear development for a musical approach that “progresses in spirals [and] develops circularly” is particularly apt when applied to the imaginative soundworlds of the 12 Études. Vivid, allusive, and aromatic, these magical settings, “Pour les agréments” and “Pour les sonorités opposées” prime examples, are emblematic of Debussy's writing in all its textural glory. It also doesn't hurt when Gerstein is so perfectly aligned to the composer in both sensibility and musical understanding. One listen to the hushed ending of “Pour les quartes” is all it takes to know Gerstein's as superb a Debussy interpreter as there is, and his bravura handling of “Pour les huit doigts” shows he's up to the technical demands of the material too. The change in tone and character from one composer to the other is obvious the moment the haunting folk theme of “Manushaki of Vagharshapat,” the first part of Komitas's Armenian Dances, arrives. Exotic and mystery-laden, the remaining six pieces perpetuate the entrancing allure of the opener, from the swoon-inducing “Yerangi of Yerevan” to the incantatory “Shushiki of Vagharshapat” and regal “Het u Aradj of Karin.”

On the second disc, Mantashyan does double duty, singing in French for the three-part Chansons de Bilitis (which Debussy frequently performed, apparently, in concerts benefiting war relief) and “Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus de maison” and Armenian, naturally, for Komitas's Armenian Songs. Her exquisite vocalizing makes “La Flûte de Pan” and “Le Tombeau des naïades” all the more spellbinding. The first and sixth of the Komitas songs, “Tsirani tsar” and “Antouni,” captivate for their sorrowful, open-hearted ache, and the laments “Chinar es” and “Qeler Tsoler” are no less beautiful. Gerstein's joined by Skanavi for 6 Épigraphes antiques, the atmospheric suite Debussy wrote for piano four hands in the first years of WWI, and the two blend so seamlessly, one could, at least in places, mistake the performances as being by Gerstein alone. As the disc moves into its final section, five late pieces, ones Debussy composed in response to the tragedy of war or as contributions to charity initiatives (“Élégie,” from Pages inédites sur la Femme et la Guerre, was written to benefit war widows, for instance), are played by the pianist solo before Adès joins him for the three-part En blanc et noir, which concludes with the affectionate homage “À mon ami Igor Stravinsky.”

The texts offer insights far too many in number to mention, but suffice it to say one's appreciation for the musical content is significantly enhanced by the writing, be it the details Gerstein provides in the “Foreword” or the historical background Becker and Mouradian include in their essays. While the conversation between Gerstein and Holliger centres on Debussy, Avanesov's article is of immense value in presenting a detailed portrait of Komitas. Becker's essay explores how artists through their creative efforts impose subjective order on the chaos and cataclysms of history. While an artist such as Debussy might have been too old to fight in WWI, he could serve his country by composing material such as “Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus de maisons” and “Élégie.” As that was happening, Armenians were being massacred in what was, in essence, a genocidal act of “systematic extermination.”

August 2024