Selection of October albums – Courageous, virtuoso and brotherly music. From Anatolia to the Caucasus, from southern Russia to Portugal.
When the days get shorter, you might have a little more time to sink into music again. And if, like so many now, you travel less, then music can be a comfort for wanderlust, which has nothing to do with exoticism.
From Anatolia to the Caucasus, from southern Russia to Portugal.
Foto Metin Yilmaz
Noubar-Noubar is an Armenian love song that tells of the beauty of a young girl. Arsen Petrosyan plays the duduk, the Armenian national instrument with such depth that one can hardly believe that he is 26 years old. The A.G.A Trio already connects three cultures in its name: Armenia, Georgia and Anatolia. For in these regions, people of different ethnicities dance hand in hand in peaceful times, but during the countless wars and also during the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, they sang laments like this one, dedicated to the murdered Armenians who lived in the anatolian city of Adana. The Armenian duduk imitates here the human voice, which is not missing at all on this album entitled „Meeting“. When the multiinstrumentalist Denіz Mahіr Kartal travelled from Berlin to the Armenian capital Yerevan in 2017 to work on his research project "Turkicized Armenian Music", he had in his rucksack his cavals and melodies familiar from his childhood in the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey. Arsen Petrosyan has roots in the Armenian community in Georgia and in anatolian city Erzurum. So it was only natural that they should strengthen their duo with the Georgian-Turkish accordionist Mіkaіl Yakut. The A.G.A Trio never loses sight of the idiosyncrasies of the different rhythms, but the unifying element dominates, the complementary timbres of kaval, duduk and accordion make this album a discovery. There are also impressively interpreted solo pieces, but the spark ignites when the three musicians play together. A courageous, virtuoso and brotherly album, especially now when people are fleeing from senseless war violence in the Caucasus again.
Album Meeting
A.G.A Trio
Label Naxos World NXW76153-2
Foto Andrey Trifonov
With this kind of songs as the opener of the album euphorically one welcomes guests in Mordvinia. The Mordvinians are a people of about 1 million people of the Finno-Ugric language group in Russia, they live mainly in the autonomous republic of Mordvinia with its capital Saransk. For decades they have withstood strong assimilation pressure, most of them are now bilingual or trilingual. However, they call themselves Ersja and Moksch and their songs survived only in a few collections and recordings. One is about the wanderlust of a young man who has lost his horses and the Folk Group Merema sings ancient polyphonic songs with audible devotion, sparingly accompanied by kitchen utensils used as percussion instruments. Each melody has different soloists, so the recordings sound not only archaic, but very lively and yet homogeneous. The group around Ekaterina Modina wants to preserve these songs, to make them accessible to a young audience abroad, but especially at home. They have already received the Russian Prize for World Music, and now their album Kezeren Koiht (Ancient Custom) has been released in Germany. This is not about vocal acrobatics, but about the memory of a small nation. A discovery from multicultural Russia, music with voices that get under your skin.
Album Kezeren Koiht (Ancient Custom)
Folk Group Merema
Label CPL Music
„A day has twenty-four hours. twenty-four hours. If he had twenty-seven, I would love her three hours more“. The text describes a passionate but unfulfilled love and Maria Berasarte sings this "Zorongo Gitano", a song attributed to the flamenco icon La Argentinita and the poet Federico Garcia Lorca. Found on the new album of the Lisboa String Trio: AQUI E ALI. With two exceptions, it brings together instrumental music played with sensitivity and restrained passion. A Portuguese guitar meets its classical sister and a double bass. Traditional themes, but also new music in elaborate arrangements, never overloaded, almost plucked in a dancing manner. Another elegantly striding piece was written by the giant of the Portuguese guitar Pedro Caldeira Cabral, it will be a classic in the repertoire of the Lisboa String Trio. The trio has existed since 2013 and is made up of José Peixoto, he became famous with group Madredeus, Bernardo Couto and Carlos Barretto. All three are at home in jazz as well as in fado and accompany great singers like Maria João or Cristina Branco, who also contributed a fado. "Aqui e Ali" is a seductive album, amazingly intense and almost perfectly balanced between melancholy and exuberant joy of playing.
Album AQUI E ALI
Lisboa String Trio
Label José Peixoto SPA 2020 JARP 01-20 CD José Peixoto/ Espelho de cultura
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