In the pamphlet that accompanies the album The Hidden Music of Sofia G., from violinist Eva Lindal and pianist Virg Dzurinko, the account of the unusual provenance of this remarkable music begins like a short story from Thomas Mann: “In 2021, by sheer chance, Eva stumbled across two hand-written music scores for violin and piano hidden in an old violin case. Signed ‘Sofia G. 1935,’ the manuscripts included some unusual graphic symbols interspersed among conventional notation. The violin case also contained a leather identification tag that read ‘Sofia Ganeshian, Locarno, Switzerland.’” So began a multiyear project to fill out the biographical details of this previously unknown avant-garde composer and discover what other music of hers might be in hiding. The result is an album of mesmerizing music as soulful, fluid, and free as any you are likely to encounter.
Eva Lindal and Virg Dzurinko
The Hidden Music of Sofia G.
(Sharakan Music)
A review
The well-traveled violinist/composer Sofia Ganeshian—born in Armenia in 1899, passed in Corfu in 1987, and discovered a quarter-century after her death—left a handful of handwritten scores for violin and piano. As interpreted by violinist Eva Lindal and pianist Virg Dzurinko—two virtuosi of the first water—these scores present deeply romantic music in startlingly modern dress. Each of the seven tracks carries the listener into a unique musical landscape of profound expression, as abstract as it is visceral, with designated expanses of improvisation as unpredictable and inevitable as a living thing. Lindal’s violin has an organic, animal quality, and it lives in and must contend and converse with the rich pianistic environments delivered by Dzurinko.
The opener, “Sarakan” (the Armenian word for “Hymn”), struggles to escape the gravitational pull of sorrow, finding moments of hope and relief. The piano’s ominous bass rumblings in “Fantasma,” a dark and anxious dream, set the violin to nervous scrapings—tree branches on a windy winter night. In “Nostalgia,” a vining line on the violin leads to soaring melodies and skittering scratches, with Lindal exploring every sonic possibility of her instrument. Waves of pianism and a chittering violin outline the playful “Salamandra.”
The final three pieces are excerpted from a larger work titled Odysseus Dreaming. “il Mare” conjures the hero’s creaking ship; the still, heat-struck sea; and the occasional swell. The frustrated yearning of “Sirene” could well be Odysseus straining against his ropes as the ship passes through the beguiling, deadly song of the Sirens. “Circe” moves through anguish and panic, the violin scratching out signals over the piano’s pedaled chords, before concluding on the hero’s determined leave-taking.
In their nuanced, dramatic, and soul-stirring performances, Lindal and Dzurinko inhabit the very spirit of Ganeshian, bringing the music vividly to life and awakening the listener’s hope that there could be more to come.
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© 2021 Mel Minter