Semistrunka

Brand new June 2011 release!

This album is based on the Lviv Lute Tablature, a medium-size anthology of vocal and instrumental Renaissance music. It offers a great range of genres and national variety in its content. Next to the lute intabulations (i.e., ornamented arrangements of vocal music for solo lute) of the most popular works of Orlando di Lasso, Clément Janequin and Pierre Sandrin one finds in it anonymous songs and dances, professional compositions more modest in scope. Aside from the compositions of Italian, French, German, and Polish origin that found their way into this collection, there are also the three virtuosic fantasias by the celebrated English lutenist John Dowland.

SARMATICA was created in 2009, when the Russian-American lutenist and musicologist Oleg Timofeyev arrived in Kyiv to teach as a Fulbright scholar. Performing at the Seventh Early Music Festival in Lviv, he met Danylo Pertsov and several other musicians now part of SARMATICA, and they had the idea for an album that combined lute music with Ukrainian folk influences. A graduate of Kyiv Conservatory, Danylo Pertsov is an adventurous composer, a multi-instrumentalist early music specialist, and an expert on Ukrainian vocal traditions. It is due to Danylo’s free spirit, imagination, and compositional skills that this program offers so much variety in sound and concept. Mikhail Kachalov plays fiddle in a variety of styles, from Middle Ages and Renaissance to Scandinavian and Yugoslavian folk traditions. A graphic designer by training, Lubov Plavaska studied with Mekhdi Jusefian, the famous Persian composer, leader of ensemble “Jaam,” and performer on tar, setar, and tombak. In addition to her competence in the music of Iran, Kurds and Crimean Tatars, Lubov has studied traditional Ukrainian singing and Orthodox liturgy. Taras Kompanichenko is a celebrated epic singer of Ukraine and the leader of his own ensemble, Chorea Kozacky. Sergey Okhrimchuk is one of the most sought after violinists in Ukraine, equally creative in early Baroque and contemporary idioms.

Designed as a musical response to one of the best-known classics of cello repertoire, the early-20th-century Schelomo by Ernst Bloch, TIMOFEYEV ENSEMBLE’s Shloyme brings together the post-Romantic aesthetics with the bitter-sweet beauty of the Yiddish folklore. The main focus of the project is the inner world of an imaginary hero Shloyme, a Jew who was born in a Ukrainian shteytl and who survived all the major calamities of the 20th century: the pogroms, October Revolution, Civil War, Stalin's Gulag, and World War II.

In 2009 the TIMOFEEV ENSEMBLE invited a new participant, ANAT PICK, an Israeli creative artist and specialist in verbal art performance. Working together with Oleg and Natalia, Anat created a tight collage of musical and verbal allusions and reminiscences. In fact, Shloyme became a self-containing entity that grew far beyond the original three movements piece. This larger “Shloyme Project”, which takes here the shape of a complete CD album, benefited from PSOY KOROLENKO who contributed three of his newest songs to the publication of this CD. In addition to the ensemble’s more recent instrumental piece ("Little Jewish Suite"), Psoy’s voice makes the entire project more complete and the inner world of the imaginary hero more palpable.

Pavel Lion, a.k.a. PSOY KOROLENKO is a Russian/Jewish multilingual poet-singer/songwriter, translator and journalist, referred to as a “wandering scholar.” His multilingual one-man cabaret balances between folk and klezmer music as well as the free-style poetry and comedy. Psoy's favorite themes include otherness, diaspora, territory, minorities, memory vs. history, nationhood and cosmopolitanism, Soviet and post-Soviet Russian and Jewish experience. PSOY KOROLENKO writes and sings in English, Russian, French, and Yiddish. He released a book of lyrics and essays and nine CDs, some of which are in collaboration with Daniel Kahn and other klezmer musicians.

This album is a Russian tribute to the Spanish composer Fernando Sor (1778-1839), more specifically, to his famous guitar duet Souvenir de Russie (Op. 63). Sor's Souvenir de Russie is paradoxically connected to the Russian guitar: the two themes Sor used for his compositions are genuine Russian folk tunes that often were chosen by Russian guitarists as themes in their variation sets. Also, even beyond the limits of the guitar repertoire, it was common in early-19th-century Russia to construct large-scale compositions based on two genuine folksongs. This album presents a collection of guitar compositions that all in some way relate to Sor's masterpiece.

Dorian Recordings/Naxos (B003IP2XZE)
June 29, 2010

This album is dedicated to the legacy of one of the most original and gifted Russian guitarists, Mikhail Vysotsky (1791-1837). Born as a serf, this seven-string virtuoso and composer was destined not only to live through the most exciting period in the history of his instrument, but also to contribute dramatically to that history. As much as we enjoy and admire Vysotsky’s music, though, our ensemble adds a creative twist to it. Namely, instead of performing his compositions the way they survive in the 19th-century editions and manuscripts—i.e., as solo pieces, we attempted to re-create the type of music making which occurred when Vysotsky spent time with the Muscovite Roma (Gypsies). Thus, we added a number of other composers to the pool of materials, arranged the solo music for the whole ensemble, but most importantly, tried to maintain a certain improvisational spriti which we believe is essential for Vysotsky’s own compositions.

Profil - G Haenssler (B002YTZPHS)
March 30, 2010

There is a certain mystery in the obsession that the Russian composers have had with Spanish music. Many would agree that some of the most popular Spanish music was in fact written by Russians – e.g., Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol or Glazunov’s Spanish Serenade. But how can we explain that just before his death, Mikhail Glinka “blessed” the emerging genius of Mily Balakirev by presenting the young composer with two Spanish themes for his use in further compositions? The former is arguably the founder of Russian national opera, the latter -- the founder of “The Mighty Handful,” sometimes referred to as “Balakirev Circle.” And yet, this exchange between the two key figures in the development of Russian national style is not about two genuine Russian peasant songs, but two Spanish themes!

Profil - G Haenssler (B001CC7HSI)
October 28, 2008

FRAUTSCHI is a documentary film that presents an intimate portrait of one of the most influential (and least known) guitar pedagogues in Russia: Kamill Frautschi (1921-1997). Oleg Timofeyev studied with Kamill for several years in the early 1980s. With this film, he for the first time brings his teacher to the attention of an international audience and helps preserve his legacy.

Through interviews with students, family documents, home videos, and an audio tape that Kamill Frautschi recorded late in his life, this documentary brings Frautschi's profound ideas on music teaching and performance to anyone interested in music and art.

ArbatFilm (www.arbatfilm.com)

Since my childhood I have been a great admirer of Georgian choral singing. In the Soviet Union, where I grew up, this sort of music was hard to overlook: flamboyant, virtuosic, sometimes melancholy, but never sentimental. Already in my teens I collected LPs of Georgian male choirs as well as solo singers accompanied by duduki (a kind of folk clarinet). More than with any other repertoire I was attracted to the nuances of melancholy and humor, tenderness and vitality, but most of all to the irresistible beauty of Georgian vocal polyphony. And yet, this interest seemed doomed to passivity, for even in my dreams I could not imagine myself a part of this extraordinary music making.

Profil - G Haenssler (B000RF7WDQ)
August 7, 2007

According to Shostakovich, 'the distinguishing feature of Jewish music is the ability to build a jolly melody on sad intonations.' This is what we love about our repertoire, and we invite our listeners to cry and laugh with us.Growing up in a Jewish family in Moscow, I started performing Yiddish tunes with my mother as soon as I started playing guitar. We played with a small band in private apartments of refuzniks and felt the pleasant excitement of engaging in underground anti-Soviet acts. Today we are resisting no one, there is no point to prove - there is only a deep and inexhaustible love for Yiddish folklore and Jewish melos.

Marquis Music (B000FQWGII)
February 13, 2007

The imperial court of Russia was emulating the cultural accomplishments of the other great capitals, fostering an artistic environment rich with literature, art, architecture, and music. In addition to enjoying the finest cultural output of the West, the Russian aristocrats promoted native art forms. Thus the music and dance of the Gypsies were brought into the cultural life of the Russian upper class at the beginning of the 19th century. Aristocratic amateurs and hardscrabble Gypsy professional musicians met, collaborated, and were inspired by each other. It is this intersection of musical cultures that the recording explores. (Peter Nothnagle, Recording Engineer)

Naxos (B0007XHKUS)
April 19, 2005

Czar's Guitars' Music of Mikhail Glinka is simply excellent music for listening, particularly of the passive kind when one is trying to concentrate on other things, but guitar enthusiasts will no doubt feel compelled to listen much more closely. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis , All Music Guide

Profil - G Haenssler (B000IY06C0)
January 30, 2007

Oleg Timofeyev, Russian Seven-String Guitar

Oleg Timofeyev’s latest CD features the compositions of Matvei Stepanovich Pavlov (artistic pseudonym: Azancheev; March 10, 1888–January 8, 1963). Pavlov was a professional cellist and symphony conductor as well as a composer for and a virtuoso on the Russian seven-string guitar. During a tour in the city of Sochi, Pavlov-Azancheev was slandered, falsely accused, and arrested on charges of Chapter 58.10, part two (“Anti-Soviet Propaganda”) and spent the years 1941–1951 in a labor camp. Throughout his imprisonment, guitar and guitar playing were particularly important in his life. He sent a number of his scores out of his labor camp, some just neatly copied, others newly composed.

Hänssler Classics (098458000)
August 1, 2004

Talisman: Oleg Timofeyev, Russian Seven-String Guitar, Artistic Director; Anne Harley, Soprano, Co-Director; Irina Rees, Harpsichord; Etienne Abelin, Baroque Violin.

The Western listener will hardly be aware of any Russian composers from this period, let alone of any women composers. In fact, these Russian women composers of the 18th century were also rather thoroughly forgotten in their home country. Only rarely do they make it onto the pages of music history textbooks. This is somewhat surprising, since some of these composers left music of extremely high quality that would decorate any recital of 18th-century music.

Dorian Recordings (DOR-93244)
September 10, 2002

The wealth and versatility of the Russian guitar tradition is only now becoming accessible to the Western listener. From its beginnings in the 1790's, Russian guitar culture went its own way, centering around a seven string instrument tuned D G B d g b d'. Although the creators of this tradition were tangentially aware of the ideas and techniques of famous Western guitarists such as Sor and Giuliani, most of the surviving music is quite different in nature and style from its Western-European counterpart.

Dorian Recordings (DOR-93203)
May 16, 2000

The first half of the 19th century witnessed the blossoming of the Russian seven-string guitar (tuned D G B d g b d'). During that time, an exquisite repertoire for the instrument was created, which departs significantly from the Western-European guitar tradition. This compact disc is the world's pioneer recording of selections from that repertoire on original instruments. The performance is historically informed and based on a careful study of Russian 19th century guitar techniques. The pieces included represent the individual styles of eleven composers - ranging from "giants" such as Sychra and Vysotsky to less prolific ones like Alferiev and Palevich, of whom we have only a handful of pieces. This recording displays the variety, elegance and wit of the Russian guitar tradition as well as its technical and musical specifity. It offers only a first taste of a hitherto neglected repertoire which holds hundreds of excellent compositions ripe for rediscovery.

Dorian Recordings (DOR-93170)
January 26, 1999

Works by Giovanni Kapsberger, Pietro Paolo Melli, Vincenzo Bernia, Michelangelo Galilei, Robert Ballard, Nicolas de la Grotte, Anonymous, Nicolas Vallet, Jacob van Eyck, Thomas Robinson, John Maynard, Robert Johnson (late-16th- and early-17th-century lute musicx)

Centaur Records (CRC-2409)
April 1, 1999