Notes from the Podium
Notes from the Podium are provided by Parker Jayne, founding member of the Capitol Hill Chorale and editor of our score for this concert
The Capitol Hill Chorale, under the leadership of Artistic Director Frederick Binkholder, is excited to present the American premiere of Georgian composer Zakaria Paliashvili’s setting of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Although individual sections of the work are known, this stunningly beautiful work is generally unknown in its entirety. Experts at the Tbilisi State Conservatory in Georgia believe that this will be its first performance in Georgian since the Bolshevik revolution.
The Chorale first became aware of Paliashvili’s Liturgy in a recommendation from Vladimir Morosan, head of the music publishing company Musica Russica in California, to Thea Austen, a soprano in the Chorale with an interest in music from the former Soviet Union. He recommended a recording of the Paliashvili Liturgy which Musica Russica carried in its catalog, performed by a Russian group in the language of the Russian Orthodox Church. She ordered it and shared it with Fred Binkholder, the Chorale’s Artistic Director – who decided the Chorale should perform the work.
When Austen asked if the score were available, Morosan responded that it was not in print, but that he would send a photocopy of a photocopy of a microfilm version of the original 1909 score he had discovered in the Lenin Library in Moscow while on a Fulbright Scholarship, the only edition ever published. From this, and a duplicate copy from the library of the Tbilisi State Conservatory which the Chorale obtained, we have prepared our own edition for modern chorus, including a transliteration of the Georgian text.
Our research into the score led to a fascinating history, mixing musical traditions of Georgia and Russia that date back many centuries.
Zakaria Paliashvili (1871-1933) is a figure of national pride in Georgia, and is considered to be the father of Georgian classical music. Themes from his operas form the basis for the country’s national anthem, adopted in 2004. The opera house in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, is named for him, his operas are performed there each year, and he is buried on the grounds. His portrait appears on one of the bills of Georgian paper money.
At the time of composition, Georgia had been part of the Russian Empire for 100 years. The Russian policy of “Russification” throughout the Empire had increasingly imperiled Georgian musical traditions, including particularly Georgian chant, a unique form of multi-part singing that has existed for more than 1,000 years, and predates the emergence of polyphony in Western European music by 500 years. Threatened under Russian rule, the preservation of Georgian chant had become a focus of national cultural preservation. In recent years, since Georgia’s independence in 1991, the performance of Georgian chant has gained increasing worldwide interest and attention because of its uniquely powerful sound and spirituality.
In his Liturgy, Paliashvili explicitly created ‘choralized’ settings of traditional chants for large mixed choir as a promotion of Georgian chant for Georgian audiences, and an homage to its preservation. The full title of the work is ‘Georgian Sacred Chants on the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.’ On the top line of the original title page (which is reproduced on the title page of this program) is the word ‘Georgian’ in letters twice the size of any others, an indication of the nationalist identity and intent of his composition.
But Paliashvili’s musical training deeply immersed him in Russian and Western musical language, both in Georgia and at the Moscow Conservatory where his principal teacher was also the teacher of Paliashvili’s Russian contemporaries – Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Gretchaninoff, Gliere, Chesnokov, and Medtner. In this unusual arrangement for mixed chorus, Paliashvili uses the Western musical language of his training, earning him bitter condemnation at the time from the Georgian “traditionalists”. Paliashvili published the work not only with Georgian text, but also with the Old Church Slavonic text of the Russian Orthodox Church so that the work can be performed in Russia, bringing awareness of Georgian chant to Russian audiences. Reflecting the political situation of the time, the work contains a musical blessing to “The Most Pious, Most Sovereign Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich of all Russia”, followed by his wife, his mother, his son, and the rest of the family of Tsar Nicholas II. It is not altogether surprising that the only recording is by Russians in the language of the Russian Orthodox Church.
While the Soviets encouraged certain types of traditional folk art, much of the historical material documenting Georgian chant was suppressed or hidden during the Soviet period. However, sections of Paliashvili’s Liturgy (for example, his setting of ‘Shen Khar Venakhi’) were known and sung privately (often in a traditional 3-part setting) by those interested in preserving traditional Georgian singing during this period. This included, for example, the founder of Rustavi, an ensemble which subsequently played a major role in fostering an appreciation of traditional Georgian music internationally. Paliashvili’s Liturgy may not have spread awareness of Georgian chant among his Georgian and Russian contemporaries as he had intended, but it did indirectly serve that goal to later generations.
The Russian and Georgian threads that weave together in this piece may help explain the mystery of why this piece has remained little known and unperformed for 100 years. Too Russian for Georgian traditionalists, too religious for the Soviet period, too Georgian for the Russian Orthodox Church, it has eluded the categories in which musical and cultural history have been carried forward over the last century.
The Chorale is grateful for its expert advisors in Georgian music and Orthodox liturgy from the US and Georgia, including Dr. Lauren Ninoshvili (Columbia University), John Graham (Ph.D. candidate, Princeton University), and Carl Linich of the Georgian vocal trio Kavkasia. These advisors provided expert guidance on Orthodox liturgy, Georgian chant traditions, and the history of Georgian music.
Also assisting was Rusudan Tsurtsumia, head of the International Research Center for Traditional Polyphony at Tbilisi State Conservatory. In addition to answering questions, she kindly made an electronic copy of Paliashvili’s The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom from the library at Tbilisi State Conservatory (which turned out to be a duplicate of the original 1909 edition we had received from Vladimir Morosan).
A longer discussion about Paliashvili, his Liturgy and its historical and cultural context is posted on the Capitol Hill Chorale’s website.
- Parker Jayne
