Ancient Letters
Elena Kats Chernin
Tamara-Anna Cislowska, piano
Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra
ABC Classics ABCLO118
★★★★★
Elena Kats Chernin’s third piano concerto is now out on CD and it’s a cracker. Like several other tracks on this disk, it’s a kind of tribute to one of Kats Chernin’s original inspirations, the little-known first wife of JS Bach, Maria Barbara, who died at the age of 36. The work carries the subtitle Lebewohl, a German word meaning farewell, and the five movements, which run for just over 25 minutes, carry their own titles, such as the deep and bitter flood, you thunderous word and so aflame in love. They roughly follow the stages of bereavement that Bach would likely have felt, shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, reflection and loneliness, acceptance and reconstruction. It is a monumental tribute to a largely uncelebrated woman, written by a woman with feeling and played by a woman whose technique matches perfectly the various moods.
Also on the CD a Bach Study taken from the prelude from his Cello Suite in G major, written specially in 2010 for Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt, and Bach’s Prelude in C minor makes an appearance in the short 31/2 minute work, Prelude Machine. The title of the CD, Ancient Letters, is a 23-minute four movement work based on the first known documents of the Sogdian people who lived around what is today Uzbekistan, the place where Kats Chernin was born.
The letters date from the 4th century and were discovered some 1700 years later. The four movements are titled Tiger Cub, Musk, Trade and Goodbye Samarkand. If there was a doubt in anyone’s mind that Elena Kats Chernin is one of the world’s great contemporary composers, this new release should put that to rest once and for all.
Michael Morton-Evans