Record of the day: Tigran Mansurian, “String Quartets”

Tigran Mansurian
“String Quartets” (Cd ECM 1905)

Today’s album contains two of the greatest works by the Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian, undoubtedly one of the most personal voices of the contemporary musical panorama; unlike his compatriot authors such as Alan Hovhanness and Aram Khachaturian, Mansurian does not use Armenian popular folklore as a spice to season or give spectacular impact to his scores.
Despite being very tied to tradition (in previous works Mansurian paid explicit homage to Komitas, considered the founder of Armenian national music) he prefers that the popular voice barely filters into these string quartets; it is present more as an epiphany of memory than through precise quotations.

The traditional spirit appears rather like a dry stamp, visible only when exposed to direct light
of the author’s compositional intelligence, through a composite language which, while not rejecting the experience of composers such as Shostakovic and Schnittke, possesses an autonomous lyricism; they are funeral pages, dedicated to the memory of deceased friends and characterized mainly by a painful singability. However, it has nothing to do with authors such as Arvo Pärt and Giya
Kancheli to whom Mansurian has sometimes been superficially compared.

The temporal dimension of these pages unfolds through a directionality dictated by an internal dramaturgy; it doesn’t
he limits himself to dilating time, but fills every interstice by proceeding through progressive accumulations, moving from the austerity of the First Quartet to the brightness of the Second, avoiding populist shortcuts and New Age atmospheres.
The reference to the singing of the oral tradition is expressed in large melodic phrases as expressive as they are emptied of any sentimentality, extended by Mansurian along vast arches.

In the rhythmic movements, the incessant pulsation of the strings has a restless character that doesn’t make one think so much of dance as of a breathless race towards a distant, perhaps unattainable, goal.

The interpretation of the Rosamunde Quartett restores these works in every detail with absolute technical perfection, total commonality of intent and impressive overall ability.

Carlo Boccadoro, composer and conductor, was born in Macerata in 1963. He lives and works in Milan. He collaborates with soloists and orchestras in different parts of the world. He is the author of numerous books on musical topics.

This text is taken from “Lunario della musica: A record for every day of the year” https://www.amazon.it/Lunario-della-musica-giorno-dellanno/dp/8806188585 published by Einaudi, courtesy of the author and the publisher.