The Washington Post
December 10, 2009 Thursday
Suburban Edition
At the Baird, atmospheric sounds from Armenia
The Smithsonian Associates and the Embassy of Armenia presented a
memorable concert in the National Museum of Natural History’s Baird
Auditorium on Tuesday night. The hour-long program of Armenian music,
performed by violist Kim Kashkashian, Armenian composer and pianist
Tigran Mansurian, and percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky, was drawn
largely from their admirable series of recordings for ECM.
Speaking through an interpreter before the concert, Mansurian noted
that, although he was going to sing some of the pieces, he is not a
singer, and he was not kidding. Even with a voice that was barely
audible, wobbly and generally unreliable, the venerable composer
contributed something affecting and mysterious to two sets of Armenian
folk song transcriptions by Vartabed Komitas, whose work on Armenian
folk music is comparable to what BartÃ?3k and KodÃ?¡ly did in Hungary.
Seeming to rise out of a distant past, Mansurian’s voice, almost
disembodied even with amplification, was echoed by many in the
audience, humming along softly.
To hear Kashkashian play makes one ashamed to have repeated those
inevitable jokes about the viola: In her hands the instrument’s tone
is as malleable and expressive as the human voice. She gave an
inflected, at times barbed line to the melodies of Mansurian’s "Four
Hayrens," composed originally for mezzo-soprano, and often doubled
Mansurian’s voice, watching carefully to match the articulation of the
words. Schulkowsky contributed mostly atmospheric sounds, drones and
harmonic clusters on the vibraphone with additional tinges and
shimmers from crotales and gongs. Although one might criticize the
overabundance of slow and reflective pieces, the concert had a
mesmerizing effect, immersing the listener in a far-off world.
— Charles T. Downey