Placeless / Kronos Quartet ; Mahsa Vahdat, Marjan Vahdat.
Material type:
MusicPublisher number: 2VLT15296 | Valley EntertainmentPublisher: New York, NY : Valley Entertainment, [2019]Description: 1 audio disc : CD audio, digital ; 4 3/4 inContent type: - performed music
- audio
- audio disc
- Title in Persian on container: lāmakān
- Songs. Selections
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult CD
|
Northport Library | CD | CLASSICAL Kronos Quartet | Available | 33111009517877 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Many of the Kronos Quartet's biggest-selling albums, going back to 1991's Five Tango Sensations, have drawn on vernacular traditions from outside the European-American sphere, and some, such as Caravan (2000), have drawn from the music of the Near East. Placeless, though, is a standout among the bunch, for several reasons. The album contains settings of Persian poetry by Rumi and various other classical and modern writers in the same ecstatic vein, hovering between religious mysticism and sensuality. The title comes from a poem by Rumi, who famously proclaimed, "I am not from the world, not from beyond. My place is placelessness. My trace is tracelessness." The album's most immediately attractive feature is the singing of Iranian vocalist Mahsa Vahdat, who has performed widely outside Iran but is forbidden by the country's Islamic government from appearing at home. (She still lives in Tehran and teaches privately.) Vahdat also wrote the melodic settings, and these are fascinating. They are not classical improvisations in the Persian system of modes but small chunks that fit the devotional exclamations of the poetry beautifully. And they approach the poetry in various ways. Sample Fate Astray, with its squarish, almost Western-style melody, and you'll also encounter another strong point: the variety of the arrangements. These draw on the work of various figures, both Persian and Western (this one is by Jacob Garchik), and they call for a wide range of textures from the Kronos Quartet, from evocations of plucked-string accompaniment to traditional string quartet textures, and even Middle Eastern percussion. The melodies are bewitching in themselves, and they seem to pass through prisms and come out in different shades. Highly recommended; one of the Kronos' strongest releases in recent years. ~ James Manheim
Sung in Persian.
Title from disc label.
Mahsa Vahdat, Marjan Vahdat, vocals ; Kronos Quartet (David Harrington, violin ; John Sherba, violin ; Hank Dutt, viola ; Sunny Yang, cello).
Composed by Mahsa Vahdat to poems by Forough Farrokhzad, Mohammad Ibrahim Jafari, Atabak Elyasi, Hafez and Rumi.
Compact disc.
Recorded November 4-8, 2018, at Kulturkirken Jakob, Oslo, Norway.
Placeless -- My ruthless companion -- My tresses in the wind -- I was dead -- Endless embrace -- Fate astray -- The sun rises -- Vanishing lines -- The might of love -- Far away glance -- Leyli's nightingales -- The color of moonlight -- Lover, go mad -- Eternal meadow.
The album marks the first collaboration between the San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet and Iranian singers Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat. Recorded in Kulturkirken Jakob in Oslo in November 2018, it has fourteen melodies that Mahsa Vahdat composed to classical poems by Hafez and Rumi and the works of contemporary Iranian poets Forough Farrokhzad, Mohammad Ibrahim Jafari and Atabak Elyasi.