Kara Karayev - Symphony No.1; Violin Concerto

Kara KARAYEV (1918-1982)

Symphony No. 1 / Violin Concerto

Kiev Virtuosi Symphony Orchestra

Dimitry Yablonsky

Janna Gandelman (Violin)

Kara Karayev was one of the most prominent 20thcentury figures in the music of Azerbaijan. The first composer from that country to achieve international success, he may also be numbered among the foremost representatives of ‘Soviet music’. Born in Baku on 5 February 1918, the young Kara soon showed a rare aptitude for music. At the age of eight he won a place at the junior music school of Baku State Conservatoire, studying piano with Georgi Sharoyev and composition with Leonid Rudolf. In 1938, he entered the Moscow State Conservatoire where he was a composition pupil of Anatoly Alexandrov. Karayev returned to Baku in 1941 and soon became artistic director of the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Society. In 1944, he was named vice-chairman of the Union of Azerbaijani Composers. In the same year, he was once again admitted to the Moscow State Conservatoire. This time he attended classes given by Dmitry Shostakovich, who remained a lifelong friend and a staunch supporter of his music.

Karayev’s illustrious career as a composer, conductor, ethnomusicologist, teacher, music writer, cultural ambassador, administrator and critic began in earnest after his return to Baku in 1946 as a graduate. In 1949, he became the director of the Azerbaijan State Conservatory and in this capacity he was to become a source of inspiration for a younger generation of home-grown musical talent. His death in Moscow on 13 May 1982 marked the end of a momentous era in Azerbaijani music.

A composer with a naturally eloquent style, Karayev imbued his compositions with the harmonies and melodic characteristics of his native Azerbaijani music, in particular the oriental intervals that derive from the centuries-old tradition of mugam, a highly improvisatory form of folk music. This paved the way for succeeding Azerbaijani composers. Karayev’s prolific output features more than 100 works and ranges widely from operas, symphonies and ballet music, to cantatas and oratorios as well as film music, arrangements and lighter pieces, some for folk orchestra.

Karayev’s Symphony No. 1 in B minor (1943) was significant in his own output and as one of the earliest significant contributions to the medium written by anyone in the South Caucasus region. Cast in two movements, this tautly dramatic piece requires a large orchestra, consisting of piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, cor anglais, three clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (side drum, cymbals and bass drum), xylophone, piano, harp and strings. Karayev uses these considerable forces judiciously, ensuring that passages for full orchestra are contrasted with delicately scored episodes.

The symphony begins with a slow, sustained introduction in which an expressive, folk-like melody for solo flute sets out thematic material that permeates the first movement. There follows an increasing series of elaborately scored variants on the tune before the main Allegro sweeps in. This is directly related to the music of the introduction and proceeds in a vigorously neo-Classical manner bristling with fugal writing. An insistent rhythmic figure leads to a sudden easing of tension and presages the arrival of the more lightly scored secondary material. This offers a welcome respite from the aggressive principal subject. Karayev’s brief use of piccolo and lower strings in the second subject calls to mind the exploration of the outer reaches of the orchestral palette in the symphonic writing of his mentor Shostakovich. Disrupting this temporary idyll, the main Allegro bursts in again, grittier than ever and more starkly fugal in character. In a powerful climactic statement the rhythmic figure is hammered out in conjunction with the main theme. The ensuing reappearance of the lyrical second subject has a soothing effect on the music and the movement ends softly and ominously as stealthy pizzicato lower strings furtively remind us of the flute’s opening theme.

After this impressive example of a tightly knit sonata form comes a satisfying counterweight in the guise of a substantial set of variations combining elements of scherzo and finale. Marked Lento moderato, the introduction is dominated by a doleful melody for bassoons and low strings analogous to the theme for solo flute which launched the previous movement. In the fiercely parodic main section this opening idea is transformed into a succession of heavy-footed dances, including a lurching waltz. At the heart of the movement, muted strings and woodwind give out a serene and devotional version of the main theme, furnishing a brief moment of repose before the savagely ironic music returns. Just as a multi-decibel peroration seems to be in the offing, Karayev thins out the textures and steers the music into a calm and deeply poignant epilogue launched by sinuous woodwind solos. As the symphony draws to a close, the trumpets solemnly recall the finale’s principal melody and a sustained piccolo note is terminated by a single soft but decisive pizzicato from the lower strings.

In 1961 Karayev visited the United States for the first time as part of a select Soviet delegation. During this trip he met Stravinsky in Los Angeles and this encounter resulted in a notable shift in Karayev’s musical style. The Symphony No. 3 of 1964 was one of the first fruits of this new aesthetic direction. In it, Karayev uses serialism, making him one of the earliest composers in the Soviet Union to adopt what was then regarded by the state as a hostile ideology. Serial techniques also feature in his Violin Concerto. The concerto, written in 1967, the same year in which he won the Lenin Prize for his second ballet score, The Path of Thunder, was premiered in 1968 by soloist Leonid Kogan at the Moscow State Conservatoire in a concert celebrating Karayev’s 50th birthday.

Idiomatic and inventive, the solo line has the authority and fluency of a composer who has gained wide experience of writing for the violin. In fact, Karayev had already written a four-movement sonata for the instrument in 1960 and his output contains other chamber pieces with an important role for the violin such as the two string quartets (1942, 1946).

The three movements of the Violin Concerto are strikingly diverse in their instrumentation. Thus, the orchestral accompaniment in the Allegro moderato opening movement dispenses with woodwind and brass altogether and consists principally of strings with occasional interpolations from harp, piano and timpani and a single tam-tam stroke at a climactic moment. At the outset, the soloist introduces the twelve-tone row upon which much of the rest of the work is built. At the centre of the movement is a mini-cadenza, though not designated as such. Catching the ear near the end of the movement is a sequence of descending trills from the soloist in high register over richly scored, hushed string chords.

Woodwind instruments, suppressed in the previous movement, assume a key role in the central Andante. Over a solemn chorale, the soloist begins an expressive threnody which unfolds in a long-breathed span. Orchestral textures are filled out at the core of this affecting processional but in the concluding section the woodwind again provide piquant support for the solo line’s understated eloquence.

The Allegro finale is a sardonic march with brass and percussion taking centre stage. The solo violin also first appears in the guise of a percussive instrument before developing the melodic potential of its elemental, fanfare-like material. The concerto’s official cadenza occurs in the middle of the movement. This substantial soliloquy is a probing meditation on the work’s thematic material as well as a showcase for the soloist’s virtuosity and musicality. After the cadenza the martial music returns, its militaristic menace compounded. Towards the end of the movement Karayev introduces the distinctive sound of bongos, a striking and unexpected textural shift. Tension increases during the final rush and the concerto closes emphatically in a bravura gesture far removed from the tender, ruminative phrases with which it began.

Paul Conway