Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich Sleepwalking in the Cities Notes on "Diplipito" and "Valse Boston" by Giya Kancheli "Valse Boston" was

written in 1996, "Diplipito" the following year. Though they can be perceived as thematically related, complementary or corresponding, there are many strands connecting them with other pieces Giya Kancheli has composed in his exile years (The Georgian composer has lived in the West since 1991) Their sound once again conveys the grief of recollection, sometimes dissolving into airy filigrees or crystallising in moments of obsession. Gestures of violence, too, erupt. But there is nothing here of expansive, world-conquering aplomb (Strauss, Schoenberg), or of the self-assured embellishment and ornamentation typical of avant-garde horizons (Boulez), and hardly a hint of the consistent refusal to deploy traditional elements of discourse or beauty (Lachenmann). As exclusive as KancheIi's music may seem, as limited as its ambit may be - it admits brittle, broken existences such as "melody" into its textures, where, as inaccessibles, as enigmatic found objects, they pursue what might be termed lives of their own. This is what Kancheli learnt from Schubert, who took already schematic formulas and, by alienating them, preserved and "maintained"them. In his more recent works Kancheli, now moving somnambulistically through the cities and throngs of the West, reveals the limits of his capacity for integration. The weighty body of works represented by the symphonies of the Georgian years has not been continued by
Dennis Russell Davies
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the same means in exile; emigration marked a sharp artistic caesura. Since then Kancheli, a traveller with a light load, has articulated himself most impressively in pieces for smaller formations. Perhaps this is also a manifestation of waning faith in collective solidarity, of heightened idiosyncrasy with respect to the artistic "sense of belonging" that had sought confirmation in the big symphonic narratives. It is in more modest formats and increasing fragmentation, in the splintering of musical diction, that Kancheli's differentiated and elemental expressive art time and again takes wing. There is little development left in the poetics and material aesthetics, for his musical language now revolves around a distance and unattainability that has always been equally close. "Diplipito"turns a phrase by the poet Joseph Brodsky into a meaning-laden motto:"My work of silence, my mute creation "Mute and enigmatic are what the words sung by the countertenor remain to the listener; the score is simply marked:"Meaningless words from a Georgian epic," (At the end of the piece, most of the players repeat the cipher"diplipito" again and again in a mysteriously agitated whisper.) Presumably the epic words hold "meaning"for the author, but belong to a private realm that will not be divulged: it is like the "esoteric" practices of many composers who built subtexts or trademarks unrecognisable to outsiders into their pieces. The alleged semantic neutrality of the word collage plainly manifests itself in the disposition of the vocal writing. Going out from the substantiality of the countertenor timbre, which by its very nature defies expressive profundity, it

persistently (apart from the concluding phase we have already mentioned) cultivates a glazed, waxen expressionlessness - a "somnambulistically" rapt disavowal of expressiveness. (Kancheli took a similar approach in earlier works where, writing for soprano, he brushed the idealised realm of childlike"angelic"expression.) The vocal part in "Diplipito"finds an equal partner in the solo cello. The orchestra (the size of the string section can be varied) rarely play tutti, there are no winds or brass at all, and the guitar, piano and (sparingly used) percussion come in individually, functioning alternately as solo and secondary presences. The terse, tentative figures in the cello contrast with the cluster-like chords typifying the piano line. For long stretches, the sonic space is chromatically measured - often in small, careful Interval steps - but again and again there is "tonal" respite, and at times one might even imagine a predominant key of C major or C minor. But at the end, with a reiterative D-major friad figure in cello harmonics receding ethereally into the distance, thrs fixed tonality is reduced to insignificance. The mood of tranquillity, even latent immobility, that dominates the first half of the piece is suspended (approximately in the middle) by the entry of a vigorous ornamental figure on the guitar (which is immediately picked up by the cello), followed by several explosive fortissimo passages. The soft murmur of a bongo rhythm increases the restlessness. This is the preparation for the final phase, the disembodiment of sonic materiality. Clearly recognisable in "Diplipito"is the linear spinning out of form, a sort of musical journey from A to H, a final (if vague, elusive) goal to-

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wards which the piece is moving. This principle (which undermines Kancheli's conspicuous inclination for the r.ostalgic, stationary, cyclical and lingering) is also perceptible in "Valse Boston" for piano and strings, The work bears two dedications. One is to the conductor Dennis Russell Davies, who plays the solo part in the present recording of the work. The other reads: "To my wife with whom I never danced." The metaphor of "dancing" should be interpreted less asa profound than as an ironic comment - but it is also an allusion to the vast distance that separates Kancheli's music from the apotheosis or demonic fury of the dance. The Boston Waltz is generally associated with the louche, slightly faded realm of urbane entertainment; for Kancheli this is at most a" distant echo" buried beneath the ru bble of the ages. Three-quarter time is never used as the vehicle, elixir and essence of dance-like energy, What does occur at the beginning (once the piano has laid massive "foundations", with support from the low strings) is a slow triplet movement; but instead of introducing spirited movement, the consistently gentle sonorities retain a heavy, clinging, glutinous quality. The first violins seem to want to counter the persistent, grinding slowness of the tempo with their own abandoned song, a mercurial line in the highest register. After this brief (threebar) interlude, the piano, in its quest for unencumbered weightlessness, suddenly falls into a schematic:'classical"idiom. Again and again these serene piano passages plummet into cluster-like noise. There is more abrupt intercutting of pppp sequences and tttf brutisms than in "Diplipito".

Throughout the rest of the piece the triplet rhythms are largely abandoned, though echoes in microscopic diminution linger in the agitatedly propulsive sections. In the piano part. above all, brutal cluster fanfares alternate with unexpected glints of melody. While this might almost recall Schubert melodies hazily transported through the winding tunnels of memory, the formulaic quality of these shards of recollection probably symbolises something simpler and more elementary, for instance visions of "piano lessons" as a set of afflictions, raptures, discoveries and failures wending their way through whole biographies. It goes without saying that the piano part is devoid of any intimation of virtuoso pyrotechnics; even the few agitated sections (among them, cascading prestissimo attacks) have sOrrlethingforced and obsessive about them. The momentum of the music makes it unmistakably clear: peace is not a given; it is achieved through the toilsome removal of obstacles. Gradually the numerous cataclysmic moments become breakthroughs, and in the end the music succeeds in gaining the "freedom" of pure transparency. As the piano sings monophonically to itself in the highest register, at once sublime and dematerialised, the calm, distinct movement of a Boston Waltz returns. The suggestion of C-minor tonicality is held off by a quietly dissonant objection: an FiF in the viola. Perhaps a sign of the presence of mind of a wanderer dreaming his way through modern cities.

Translation:

Eileen Walliser-Schwarzbart

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