These two works are
fast becoming Kancheli repertoire pieces.
Mourned by the Wind has been
recorded by I Fiamminghi and Rudolf
Werthen on Telarc, by the Bonn Beethovenhalle
Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies
and by the Georgia State Symphony under
Dzansug Kakhidze (Melodiya) amongst
others. Simi has been graced
by its dedicatee, Rostropovich, on another
ECM disc, this time with the Royal Flanders
Philharmonic but again with that great
Kancheli proponent Kakhidze.
Both however have not
yet appeared coupled, as far as I’m
aware, so that this Chandos offering
stakes a strong and persuasive claim
in that respect. It is vital in pieces
such as these that the recording is
sympathetic and Chandos offers a spacious,
all enveloping sound stage for these
two works of enormous communing depth.
Simi, subtitled
Bleak Reflections for cello and orchestra,
means "string" in Georgian.
It’s a work not far short of half an
hour in length and one that needs and
demands absolute concentration; inattention
will inevitably lead to a feeling of
unease with the idiom and a break in
the intense connective tissue that the
work deploys – it may seem merely keening
and sorrowful but there’s a sure logic,
both structural and emotive, that underlies
it. The cello enters with rather bumpy
lines, uneasy and unsure, over a veil
of supporting orchestral sound; there’s
an outburst at about 4.10 though the
skein of the piece remains essentially
quiescently withdrawn. A bigger interjection
at 6.15 threatens to derail the meditative
focus but instead the music becomes,
if anything, tinged almost with sentimental
gestures. This is abruptly dispensed
by a fascinatingly compact conjunction
of burgeoning Boogie Woogie gestures
(has anyone else noted this of Simi?)
and Hitchcockian-Herrmannesque slash.
The cello’s shocked response is to ascend
into the ethereal heights of the instrument’s
register and for the orchestra to venture
some vaguely baroque tinged gestures
and to ratchet tension with bold percussive
writing. Even so the piece ends with
quiescent serenity.
Mourned by the Wind
might be known better by some as Liturgy.
It’s the bigger work, and has a
greater range of dramatic outbursts.
Written in four movements in memory
of Givi Ordzhonikidze it strikes an
immediate impression. The cello’s rocking
figures are accompanied by mournful
orchestral writing and by some colouristic
innovations, notably some fascinating
harpsichord sonorities. The outbursts
of the second movement are followed
by reflective stillness. Kancheli makes
use of the piano, coiling the cello
over the treble insistence of the keyboard
instrument, and unfolding a Larghetto
that has a concise chant-hymnal quality
to it. The finale is the longest work
and bears the greatest brunt of the
outsize, sudden and shocking orchestral
outbursts. These are grim and unyielding
if short – there are tension-fuelled
moments throughout, and many moments
of stillness and reflection, as if the
mind has been becalmed and then with
catastrophic clarity suddenly remembers
the inescapable realities of disaster,
and of death. Once more the consoling
end comes as some balm, as an absorption
into some kind, at least, of acceptance.
Ivashkin and Polyansky
exert unremitting energy in these works;
the fluid and the shocking are controlled
with great understanding. To those who
seek a coupling of this kind – sorrowful
though it is – then this partnership
keens with commitment and a bitter truthfulness.
Jonathan Woolf
Alexander Ivashkin (cello) 
