Canti d’inizio e fine – for a solo performer who can feel, play, sing, scream, moan, swear, breathe, squeal, whisper, bleat, hiss, dream…
Canti d’inizio e fine – for a solo performer who can feel, play, sing, scream, moan, swear, breathe, squeal, whisper, bleat, hiss, dream…
For over ten years, Shalygin has been occupied with a project for a lifetime: music for solo instruments, since the most concealed, intimate and deep things can only be expressed by a single instrument. One musician on the stage, who plays not just for the audience, but more for himself, akin to a person praying. In each of his solo works, Shalygin reaches an exalted state, giving the instrument a special voice.
For this kind of musical work, the composer always looks forward to meeting a true artist. Someone who with unique technical skills, possession of a wide scale of emotional palette, stoic work ethics, and most of all, someone ready to be challenged. The talent of Maya Fridman includes all of that and even more. She has a huge potential to implement these new concepts. She belongs to a class of performers who were born to pave the way for new music.
The piece consists of six songs and an epilogue, “Todesfuge” on the poem by Paul Celan. Each part represents an imaginary folder in the Holocaust victims, and is assigned to one out of six Angels of Death: Gabriel, Samael, Kapziel, Azrael, Abaddon, and Michael. The last poem combines mysteriously compelling imagery with rhythmic variations and structural patterns that are both elusive and pronounced. At the same time it has been regarded as a masterful description of horror and death in a concentration camp.
Label | TRPTK |
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Genre(s) | Classical – Contemporary (> 1920) |
Artist(s) | Maya Fridman |
Composer(s) | Shalygin, Maxim |
Recording location(s) | Willem Twee Toonzaal, 's-Hertogenbosch (NL) |
Recording date(s) | January 2019 |
Cat. No. | TTK 0029 |
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Release date |
May 4th, 2019 |
Additional links |
"… the music is penetrating in its intensity, the beauty and the perfection in Fridman’s performance. In the epilogue everything comes together, melting vocal cords, bow and strings together in one breathtaking fusion."
Frits van der Waa, de Volkskrant (40 Best Albums of 2019)
"Cello and voice are [in Todesfuge] remarkably close to one another, to form an inseparable unity. And yes, Shalygin succeeds, especially in this movement, in making us reflect on the horrors of the Holocaust, also thanks to the breathtaking performance of Fridman."
Ben Taffijn, Nieuwe Noten
"About the performance, I can, no I have to be very short, because Shalygin practically wrote the piece on her, and that – how could it be otherwise – she is the ultimate interpreter of it, she has to be."
Aart van der Wal, Opus Klassiek
"Multi-talent Maya Fridman knows how to create an amazing performance in an urgent and concentrated way, that leaves a long-lasting deep impression. Especially Abbadon, the devilish ruler of the dead, leaves a deep dramatic impression."
Jan de Kruijff, Musicalifeiten