Pelēcis

Georgs Pelēcis is a Latvian composer and musicologist. He studied in Moscow under Aram Khachaturian, and is currently a professor at the Latvian Academy of music. His work is notable for its clarity, and its apparently naÏve simplicity, which can seem to teeter alarmingly between the banal and the sublime. It’s a determinedly happy music, which abounds in straightforward consonance, and shows the joint influences of early music and of contemporary minimalism. Pelēcis has composed dozens of works, but only a relatively small number of these have been recorded. The pianist Alexei Lubimov has included pieces by Pelēcis on two of his CD releases: his New Year’s Music for solo piano, and his Concertino Bianco for piano and orchestra. The former piece was the first of this composer’s work that I heard, and I must admit I still haven’t warmed to it. The Concertino, however, is a favourite of mine (for an mp3 of the opening movement, click here). Anyone tempted to follow my recommendation should note, however, that at least one reviewer has recoiled from what he felt was a ‘diabetes-inducing sugariness’ in its second movement, while another likened listening to a work composed for the ‘white notes’ only (hence bianco), to ‘watching someone avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk.’

Another champion of Pelēcis’s music is his fellow Latvian, the virtuoso violinist Gidon Kremer. At least three of the releases by Kremer’s ensemble have included compositions by Pelēcis: including Nevertheless, a lengthy, meditative, and occasionally beautiful concerto for violin, piano and strings, and the briefer, breezier Meeting With a Friend. This latter piece is a musical reconstruction of a day Pelēcis spent in Moscow with Vladimir Martynov. Pelēcis and Martynov have been friends and correspondents for many years, and out of their correspondence, a musical collaboration took shape, one that was eventually recorded in 2002, and issued on CD (on the Russian Long Arms label) the following year. For an mp3 of one of Pelēcis’s contributions to this recording, click here: I love this particular piece, even while it sporadically puts me in mind of a lounge-pianist attempting to recall the theme to some ’80s TV show… All of which brings me of the point of this entry, which is to introduce some extracts from the liner notes to this CD, wherein one of Pelēcis’s letters: the one, it seems, that initiated this musical exchange, is reproduced. In the letter, he describes an inspirational dream…

…And what I was especially planning to write about happened in a bus on the way to Salacgriva. I could possibly call it a revelation […] At any rate, for me this vision had turned out to be most impressive. Albeit being an entirely musical one. The express bus drove smoothly along the highway. The weather outside of the window was very cloudy. I slumbered along, but was entirely sober. There was music sounding out from the radio, which all of a sudden started to arouse in me an unspeakable delight. In this condition I fell asleep, whereas before I was trying to understand the acoustical-psychological reasons for such a wondrous effect of the sounds from the radio on me. And all of a sudden I had a dream that I was in a large and majestic cathedral, most probably an Orthodox Christian one, although the setting and the interior was hardly a traditional one. Along with me there was a very large number of Muscovites there—our common acquaintances.

You and I were sitting. A few other people were sitting as well. Occasionally, some groups of people moved slowly and ceremoniously. As for me, I was completely and ecstatically benumbed. The only thing which was reality, and what captivated me completely was the music. It was a wonderful and endless flow of the most varied inward qualities, in which nothing was repeated, whereas outwardly it was a smooth beautiful sound without fluctuations in the level of the mood. You will, most probably, smile, and it would be difficult to provide this music with serious commentaries, but it went on in the most varied types of genres and stylistic trends. It had features of, alternately, rock-music, early music, a certain Tukhmanov and “even worse types.” However, everything followed up, one idea after another, in such a wonderful way, and each musical section contained such a great deal of spiritual-artistic power as well lightness, that it seemed that the problem of the everyday type of music (surrounding us) being “low” or “down-to-earth” simply did not exist. But one thing I remembered very well was that there were no sounds or no trace of aesthetics of modernism or the avant-garde present.

[…] now I could say that it confuses and embarrasses me more than inspires me. It is because now I know that it is possible to attain a similar type of inner freedom as the type that was available to the ancient peoples, but existing at the level of our entire auditory experience. And it could unreservedly pour out into an endless stream of sound, without any repetitions or “thematic development.” But its most important modus (the technical modus) had already eluded my comprehension. I only remember its spiritual-artistic modus—continuously evoking happiness, love and tenderness. But how did such heterogeneity combine in such an unquestionable homogeneity—I had no idea. How was such a natural and desirable eternity attained? What transformation did the sound material receive, so that each sound would penetrate so deeply into the soul?… A few days ago, in the evening, having made use of my loneliness, I sat down at the piano and within the time-frame of 10 or 20 minutes, wrote a short piece. At first, I was not too involved in it, while now, I am frequently playing it and singing it to myself. There is a certain type of Schumannesque vein in it, which it is pleasant to touch upon. I did not find any irresistible intonations here, of course, but I still would like to share it with you. Apparently, there would be no sense to play it at any of the official composers’ forums. Would anybody have any use for it at all, the way it is? Maybe you don't have any use for it either, but I will still send it to you. You could think of it, simply, as a “greeting from Riga.” Write to me, whenever you have the time or are in the mood! / Gosha / 3 December, 1984 / (translated by Ant Rovner).