Philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) described the encounter between the organised philosophical world of the ancient Greek and the mystical, abstruse world of the East as a dark fire. This would have caused the enlightenment in Greek poetry. It’s unclear what Heidegger really thought about it, but I found the mental image of a dark fire lit by this chance meeting beautiful and highly inspiring. For Heidegger, this was mainly about the East and West, but to me it’s about an encounter with the realms of other people’s experience, principally those of musicians. When two energies meet for the first time and are fully open to the experience, a new mirror image of themselves they have never seen before will arise. This is also why “Dark Fire” is also a force of self- recognition. Turkish composer Ahmet Adnan Saygun, a contemporary of Heidegger, whose Partita plays a central role on this album, also describes this force with the quote on the previous page.
Together with duduk player Kadır Sonuk I play Sarı Gelin, an Azerbaijani traditional. Through my collaborations with Kadır, I learned to play and think more outside of the confines of the notes. To trust my intuition and to dare to create music in the spirit of improvisation. I also made an arrangement and improvisation to a song by Aşık Veysel, together with Kadır.
In my musical collaboration with classical guitarist Izhar Elias, I play two works by Spanish composer Gaspar Cassadó. It was only when I started to play these pieces lighter, more transparent, and less forceful that Ihzar and I began to understand each other, and I could fully get in touch with his timbre. I grabbed my bow a bit more towards its middle, giving me better control over my articulation – and actually got to play a bit more like a guitar.
With Vincent van Amsterdam on accordion, I had to work in a total opposite fashion; this duo demanded a more broad and continuous sound. With him, I played Sachidao from 5 Pieces on folk themes by Georgian composer Sulkhan Tsintsadze. It’s such infectuous music, grasping at you and never letting go. With pianist Helena Basilova I play three other movements from this cycle, beautifully written for cello and piano; clear, harmonic and balanced.
The starting-off point for all these encounters with my duo partners is formed by solo pieces. This album opens with Ahmet Adnan Saygun’s Partita for solo cello, Op. 31, enclosed between its meditative sounds at the beginning and the end. It’s with this droning low note together with the melody on top that you can already imagine a duet with cello and duduk. The highly colorful Suite for cello solo by Gaspar Cassadó is followed up by duos with classical guitar. Particularly in Lamento de Boabdil, you can clearly hear the Arabic influence on Spanish music. Lastly, the seldomly-performed Toccata for cello solo by Sulkhan Tsintsadze conjures up a musical collaboration with other instruments.
