Zach Top Music in Time of War - Debussy/Komitas CD2 and Book.

Product Description Inspired by the music of Komitas, a pioneer of ethnomusicology and revered as the founder of the Armenian national school of music, Kirill Gerstein’s most recent initiative epitomizes his approach to music-making. Scheduled for release in the weeks between the anniversary of Debussy’s death and Armenian Genocide Memorial Day, Music in Time of War is a double album which places the music of Komitas alongside that of Claude Debussy, a seminal composer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who held a deep admiration of Komitas’s music. Both composers were profoundly affected by the implosion of their worlds – Komitas by the Armenian Genocide, Debussy by the First World War – and their musics reflect a close emotional alignment. For many Komitas is terra incognita, yet for those already familiar with his work, his memory burns more brightly than ever. The project is presented as an illustrated book with a series of in-depth essays commissioned by Kirill... Review Gerstein is superb if just a little clinical in Debussy’s 12 Études, and he’s partnered by Thomas Adès in a fine performance of the two-piano En Blanc et Noir, and by Katia Skanavi in the six Epigraphes Antiques. A sequence of final works includes Debussy’s last piano piece, the tiny Les Soirs Illuminés par l’Ardeur de Charbon (Evenings Lit by Glowing Coals), which was only rediscovered in 2001, and his last song, the touching Noel des Enfants Qui n’ont Plus de Maisons (Christmas Carol for Homeless Children). --The Guardian 4**** This is a story of two composers, Claude Debussy and Komitas Vardapet. One is among the most celebrated, the other little known, and although neither fought, both suffered in the first world war years, Debussy being diagnosed with cancer in 1915, dying three years later, and Komitas traumatised in the Armenian genocide of 1915-16. The majority of the works on this double album, titled Music in Time of War, date from those war years. The interest in the juxtaposition between the composers comes from hearing how two such different kinds of music could coexist. Komitas was a clergyman, composer and ethnomusicologist. In pieces such as his Armenian Dances of 1916 and a selection of his songs, included here, we go to the roots of Armenian music, so immediately distinctive in its rhythms and modal inflections. Kirill Gerstein gives the dances a piano virtuoso’s clarity of articulation and Armenian soprano Ruzan Mantashyan is a natural for the songs. It is Debussy, though, who takes the lion’s share of the playing time. Prime among the late works here are the complete Études, imbued with a halo of warmth by Gerstein. Other highlights include the Chansons de Bilitis, elegantly sung by Mantashyan, and En blanc et noir for two pianos, in which Gerstein is joined by none other than composer Thomas Adès. The concept of this unusual project is original and performances are high-class. ‘Music in Time of War’ is released by Myrios Classics. --The Financial Times 4****