A Trace of Silence

Anton Batagov "Music for piano" (2003), "Symphony.ru" (2003) CD review

By Alexander Gorbachev, zvuki.ru, March 09, 2004

 

So much has been written about Batagov on Zvuk i .ru that it would seem impossible to add anything new. However, music written by this person is very deep and even, very likely, inexhaustible. Batagov’s music requires many attentive listenings to apprehend it.

It stands to remind us of whom we are talking. Anton Batagov – certainly one of Russia’s most famous minimalists – his long artistic and spiritual searches giving form to his public activities. He wrote the soundtrack to Ivan Dykhovichny’s movies and gained fame unheard of for a classical musician. He wrote music for NTV television station, embodying the idea of changing human perception of reality. Then he illustrated the well-known thesis of the “Death of the Author” with his own example, releasing a collection of Buddhist prayers and dances. The individuality of the composer dissolved in the depths of ancient self-knowledge. In recent years, Batagov finally left for Buddhism, departed the world, rarely appeared in public – the more interesting and significant the output of three CDs.

“Music for Piano” is the possibility to hear how Batagov as a pianist plays Batagov as a composer. Four parts of this composition were recorded in 1999, and it took five years to publish it, but for this type of music, this is just a small hitch in the process of publication. The piano is played very quietly and the pauses are as significant as the damped chords – in these, one must listen carefully and immerse oneself. These compositions live their complete internal lives, monotone and immovable – all just illusions, because in this absence of movement is far more meaning and content than in the standard music stuff mindlessly rushing ahead.

“Symphony.ru” – a newer composition from around 2000 – is likely more structured: from drips of the keyboard – to quiet outflows of the strings, from violins and violoncellos – to a monastic choir ending the disc. The meaning is again somewhere between imperceptible transitions from one theme to another.

These works of Batgov, like many of his other pieces, are metaphors of time. But these representations of time expressed here, are quite untraditional: they are neither linear nor circular – all continually return, circles spreading on the water, pulsating, changing their position and diameter. However, any comparison can hardly adequately serve the characteristics of the work. As Batagov himself noted: “One can talk of words, but of music – be quiet or else you’ll say something stupid”.