Here in silence

"High Note" in the Kremlin Museums

Museums of the Moscow Kremlin following the Pushkin Museum. Pushkin and the Tretyakov Gallery developed their own concert strategy and opened the series with a performance by the British vocal quartet The Hilliard Ensemble in the Patriarchal Palace - a beautiful, quiet place, although not entirely suitable for holding public concerts. The ticketed audience (the first time was invitational) at the concerts is expected to be about 150 people. In combination with the style of the announced programs and the level of the named performers, all this gives the event a rarity and elitism.

The Kremlin has hosted concert events of varying degrees of sophistication before. But for the first time they are beautifully conceptualized - early authentic sacred music and modern music inspired by old and new spiritual traditions will be heard here, performed by European, American, Middle Eastern and other musicians.

The Hilliard Ensemble, which emerged in 1974, named after the legendary English miniaturist jeweler and specializing in music of the 15th-16th centuries, as well as modern spiritual (and not only) works, illustrated the concept of the future cycle very widely, showing its own mastery of paints and nuances. This is not the first time the ensemble has sung in Moscow: at December Evenings 2002, it sang along with the Norwegian jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek, and in the mid-90s, in the Small Hall of the Conservatory at the Sofia Gubaidulina Festival, it sang an entire program by Arvo Pärt, a former Soviet avant-garde player, now German Orthodox postminimalist, many of whose works were written specifically for the ensemble.

The Kremlin, too, could not do without a fresh Pärt as a representative of the modern Orthodox tradition. The same tradition, but with a British accent, was represented in the program by Ivan Moody, whose composition Arkhangelos gave the name to the entire program. It also included the Scottish author James MacMillan (“Here in Silence” based on text from an ancient manuscript), the ancient author Sheringham, about whom even the performing archivists themselves know nothing, the anonymous author of a 16th-century hymn (Italian instrumental music, canonical text), Canadian composer of Armenian Gregorianism on a 14th-century text by Jonathan Wild, another composition by the Moscow composer Alexander Raskatov living in Germany, “Praise” in 1998, on a canonical text in five parts using two church bells, which, however, Hilliard did without, and, finally, sharaks -- medieval Armenian chants arranged by the Armenian classical composer Komitas. A huge picture of music in miniature - with Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian lines and intersections - was sung with the obligatory plastic and discreet perfection. Without a detailed program, comments to the confused audience after the first number were given by the ensemble players themselves.

The further development of events in the cycle, without claiming the same intensity, promises no less breadth: the spiritual tradition of the Latin American Baroque and the Spanish Middle Ages (with Moorish, Catholic and Sephardic roots) are assumed. Already on March 6 - the British ensemble Fretwork with the music of Jewish musicians who composed at the English court in the 16th century, and then - the British pianist Joanna McGregor with “Twenty Views of the Child Jesus” by Olivier Messiaen. And in September - the famous countertenor Michael Chance with the works of another famous Orthodox author, the British John Tavener.

So the series shows British roots (series curator Kim Thomas), Orthodox registration, and a desire not to be limited by either one.

Yulia BEDEROVA