„Styx” for viola, choir and orchestra

STYX was created in 1999, at the request of the Gaudeamus Festival in the Netherlands. Kancheli’s close friends, composers Avet Terterian and Alfred Schnittke, died in the 1990s and this determined his choice for the requiem character and the title of the work (Styx in ancient Greek mythology is one of the five rivers in the kingdom of Hades together with Phlegethon, Acheron, Lethe, and Cocytus. It is the river of hatred, dividing the world of the living from the netherworld). Even at the time when the work was conceived, Kancheli decided to dedicate it to Yuri Bashmet. In the words of the author: „Bashmet was my choice, because the voice of the viola is capable of bringing together the world of the living and the world of the dead, divided by the waters of Styx. Only the viola, with the richness of its sound and versatility of expression, can bring the soul to reconciliation, peace and harmony. The solo viola has become the centre of the work, the core of its dramaturgy and thanks to the richness of colours and expressive intonation [of the instrument], it seems to reconcile the contrary extremes of my music.” In fact, Kancheli has found the viola sonority attractive more than once and he has repeatedly assigned to it an important role in his symphonies, as well as a solo instrument in the liturgy Mourned by the Wind (dedicated in memoriam to musicologist Givi Ordzhonikidze). Later he shared: „I feel connected with [Bashmet]. I spend about two or three years working in any major work, which is about a whole lifetime. I wrote two large-scale compositions for Bashmet, which means that I have devoted to him two lifetimes... If I am allowed the opportunity and the Most High does not take me home, I shall devote one more life to him...” In Styx the solo viola is far from the virtuosity, peculiar for the traditional solo instrument, it is the “protagonist” in the narration, leading and emotionally interpreting the musical motion, unifying the choral and orchestral texture. The religious and philosophical conception of the work has provoked its being described as a requiem, despite the absence of the salient features of this genre – there are no separate movements, the traditional text is also absent. „The traditional canonical text was unacceptable to me, since this was a preconditioned form, and to me this means ‘shackles’ once again”. The composer shaped a Georgian text from separate verbal fragments, used in a purely phonic way – titles of Georgian folk songs (Dio, Naduri, and Nana), ancient Svan chants (Lileo, Zari), Georgian churches and monasteries (Alaverdi, Sioni, Ateni, Betani, and Gremi), devotional phrases, names of family members, of the departed relatives and friends. No logical connection was sought between them, but only tonal semantic associations, where the elements are assembled into a gradually emerging and increasingly suggestive sacral imagery, the idea for the memory, the continuity of spiritual connections, the belief in the divine, in immortality. This is suggested by the musical substance itself, slowly unfolding in the broad spectrum of lugubrious sonorities, psalmodic devotion, and exalted expressiveness; embedded in intonational formulas, associated with lamentation, grief or engendering the allusion of a magnificent temple space. Having achieved great popularity throughout the music world, the Styx Requiem was also given a performance in a solo violin version by Gidon Kremer with the Berlin Radiochoir and Deutsche Symphonie Orchester under the direction of Edi Klaas on 10 June 2007.