Dina Mir Airat Ichmouratov Airat Ichmouratov (b. 1973) premiere recordings Concerto Grosso No. 1, Op. 28 (2011) 21:10 To Yuli Turovsky Airat Ichmouratov clarinet Pavel Batsian violin Elvira Misbakhova viola Alexander Serdiukov cello Marina Romeyko piano with Igor Avdeyev percussion Roman Zhdanovich percussion 1 Allegro – Poco meno mosso – Tempo I – Poco meno mosso – Tempo I – Con molta espressione – Maestoso nobile – Poco a poco morendo – Largo pesante – 7:11 2 Adagio – Con molta espressione, doloroso – Poco meno mosso – Tempo precedente – Marcato pesante – A tempo tenebroso – Poco a poco morendo – 9:09 3 Allegro con brio – Poco a poco crescendo – Poco più mosso, frenetico – Tempo precedente – Allegro maestoso 4:49 3 Three Romances, Op. 22 (2009)* 21:18 for Viola and Strings, with Harp To Eleonora Turovsky Oksana Sushkova harp 4 I Moderato – Andante – Adagio 5:37 5 II Adagio 8:29 6 III Largo 7:03 4 Octet, Op. 56 ‘Letter from an Unknown Woman’ (2017) 17:16 in G minor • in g-Moll • en sol mineur for Strings after Stefan Zweig’s Novella Brief einer Unbekannten Arranged by the Composer for String Orchestra 7 Largo – Adagio – Meno mosso – Poco più mosso – Tempo I [Adagio] – Poco meno mosso – Larghetto maestoso – 8:51 8 Allegro – Moderato – Allegro – 3:49 9 Largo – Adagio – Meno mosso – Grave – Poco a poco morendo 4:35 TT 60:04 Elvira Misbakhova viola* Belarusian State Chamber Orchestra Oleg Podov leader Evgeny Bushkov 5 Airat Ichmouratov: Orchestral Works Introduction (2011) there is a melismatic clarinet doina. Montreal-based since 1998, Airat That is a rhapsodic, improvised meditation, Ichmouratov (b. 1973) traces his musical now a part of the klezmer style, but having roots back to the dominant culture in his its origins in Romanian folk music. This doina, native Tatarstan in Soviet times: ‘It was especially its opening phrase, is the musical definitely the Russian school of composers’, cell out of which Ichmouratov develops he says, without rancour. his concerto. It generates several themes I’m influenced to this day by Shostakovich, and initially led the composer to a choice of Prokofiev, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff and five solo instruments: violin, clarinet, viola, Tchaikovsky. My own musical style has cello, and piano. In the baroque concerto evolved out of this rich heritage. grosso, these would form the solo group There is more. The Volga Tatar-born Russian- (the concertino), passing musical material Canadian composer learned to play klezmer back and forth with members of the larger music while busking, together with his orchestra (the ripieno). This division of solo viola-playing wife, Elvira Misbakhova, as and ensemble instrumentation, however, is new immigrants on the streets and Métro of Ichmouratov’s main nod in the direction of Montreal. the traditional concerto grosso. (Ichmouratov I’ve been touring the world for twenty explores the possibilities further in his years as a clarinettist with the Montreal Concerto Grosso No. 2, Op. 60 (2018) for band Kleztory and find myself, a Muslim- violin, flute, harp, and orchestra, which is born musician, playing klezmer. This, too, written in a contemporary baroque style.) A is now a distinctive part of my musical shimmering fanfare from piano and strings language. announces an exuberant, upbeat, somewhat neoclassical opening theme, first in the Concerto Grosso No. 1, Op. 28 violins, then clarinet. Its Prokofiev-like Towards the end of the middle movement of irreverence and good humour contrast with a Ichmouratov’s Concerto Grosso No. 1, Op. 28 broad, lyrical second theme. This soon begins 6 to taper towards something mysterious, only second theme of the opening movement, to be brushed aside by the traditional repeat is announced with a virtuoso flourish by of the opening ideas, as in the exposition of the solo violin. This is then echoed by viola a classical symphony. But appearances can and, before long, by the full orchestra and be misleading, for Ichmouratov soon goes now extended into a joyous paean. Over on to develop the lyrical second theme into a marching bass, angular triplet figures a short Tchaikovsky-like ballet scene. As the accompany a new freylekh-style violin two themes are further developed the music melody, partly forged out of the triplets. It broadens into an homage to Rachmaninoff builds to a frenetic climax, dominated by and his love of bells. The clarinet introduces wailing clarinet, soon to develop further a traditional Russian folk song (‘Mother with a return of the joyous main theme, now dear, it’s dusty in the field’), then there is an in both violin and piano. The momentum is unwinding towards four decisive chords and carried forward like a spinning dreidel into a final salute to the rising opening figure of a return of the shimmering opening fanfare, the main theme. more snatched glimpses of past themes, and The three movements are played without a teasing parting shot from the clarinet. a break. In the central Adagio, the solo cello Ichmouratov’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 was transforms the rising motif into a lament, commissioned by Jean-François Rivest, Jewish in its modality, but original to the Alexandre Da Costa, and the Orford Arts composer. It is heard three times before Centre, who first performed it on 15 July 2011. the clarinet dramatises it in a full-throated It is dedicated to Yuli Turovsky (1939 – 2013), song of mourning, marked doloroso (sad). A conductor, cellist, and the founder of calming, consoling passage follows before I Musici de Montréal, a musician whom the lamenting theme is revisited, now on Airat Ichmouratov credits with providing a viola, accompanied by sobbing strings. This turning point in his life and career. theme is heard four times, with mounting intensity, until the clarinet makes the Three Romances for viola, strings, and harp, sorrowing song intensely personal in its Op. 22 doina, and the movement eventually trails off The Three Romances for viola, strings, to a murmur. The main theme of the finale, and harp, Op. 22 are beautiful miniatures, a direct descendent of the broad, lyrical nostalgic and wistful at times, more 7 intense and dynamic at others. They were suspensions built into the opening motif of written in 2009 as a birthday gift for and an the main theme. (Its leap of a seventh – affectionate character portrayal of Eleonora deriving from one of the themes in the Turovsky (1939 – 2012), and were first last movement of Shostakovich’s Fourth performed at a surprise birthday concert by Symphony – would play a particularly her pupils. The graceful, sustained theme of powerful role in the Octet and has the first Romance, which ebbs and flows in subsequently evolved into what Ichmouratov the breeze, evokes the awakening of spring. acknowledges as his personal ‘Fate’ motif, In the variation that follows, a more active found in such works as the Fourth String accompaniment from the harp enriches Quartet, Second Cello Concerto, and Second the string texture as the viola line gradually Concerto Grosso.) It evolves from poignancy comes into bloom. The viola then becomes to persistence and forceful dissonance more ardent, before dying away into a coda within a short time span. The movement built upon fragments of the theme; a final closes by returning to the tranquillity of the soliloquy from the viola echoes the main opening. The Romances were given their theme. Its outline is transformed into a public première on 16 May 2012 by Elvira slow-moving ostinato around which the Misbakhova, the composer conducting second Romance is built. Its yearning main I Musici de Montréal. theme rises and falls after the manner of the previous Romance, to which it is thematically Octet in G minor, Op. 56 ‘Letter from an related. As the layers build and a new, more Unknown Woman’ rhythmic theme is introduced, the music In 1922 the Austrian novelist and man of becomes more emphatic and insistent. The letters Stefan Zweig (1881 – 1942) published tension is resolved during a brief recitative, his novella Brief einer Unbekannten. An after which the viola leads into a concluding unsigned twelve-page letter to a lifelong love variation over the opening ostinato sequence. is written to be read only after the death of its The third Romance has an elegiac writer. The recipient, a renowned male author, atmosphere at the beginning and end, partly is oblivious to the love of the female writer through the pervading atmosphere of the who as a child, living in the same building, Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, spied on him through a peephole in the door, but also through the long expressive as he brought home fashionable women night 8 after night. At eighteen, she willingly allows climax, punctuated by the rising seventh, herself to be seduced by him. A few years and soon cut short by stabbing chords and later, still tracking him, she again sleeps a distant echo of the ‘Love’ theme, high on with him – without his having recognised her solo violin. A new section (Allegro) introduces from any past encounter. All the while she unsettling, pianissimo triplets and an has been caring for his child, never telling increasingly assertive bass line. This builds him until the child dies and she finds herself to a fff statement in the lower strings of the unable to continue life. ‘I was inexperienced three-note figure of a rising seventh, twice and naïve. I flung myself into my fate as if repeated. The ‘Fate’ motif is now stated most into an abyss’, she writes in the letter. This clearly. It turns into pulsing chords, like a story of unrequited love, of loss, pain, and heartbeat, which die away and are followed obsession, inspired Airat Ichmouratov in 2017 by two further, low, hushed statements of to compose his seventeen-minute, single- the ‘Fate’ motif as the middle section ends, movement Octet in G minor, Op.