Albanian Composer among 21st Century Classics
By Merita B. McCormack
Washington DC
As appeared in ILLYRIA NEWSPAPER on June 17 2008
Thomas Simaku is an Albanian composer based in England, and teaches at the University of York. It is not the first time that we have come across his achievements and successes which have marveled people in both sides of the Atlantic. As the official York University Newsletter emphasizes, “his music has been reaching audiences all over Europe and the USA for over a decade and it has been awarded a host of accolades for its expressive qualities and its unique blend of drama, intensity and modernism”.
Simaku’s 50th birthday in 2008 is being marked with the release of a portrait CD comprising six works performed by the London – based Kreutzer Quartet. Released on Naxos 21st Century Classics, the CD (8.570428) was launched at the Spring Festival of New Music in York on 8th May 2008 in a concert given by the Kreutzer Quartet. The disc features his compositions Radius – String Quartet No 2 and Voci Velesti – String Quartet No 3, which were recently given their British premieres by the Kreutzer Quartet.
Simaku says: “the main idea behind the two quartets, and, in a wider sense, all the works included in this disc, is that of a voyage in time in search of an expression where modern and ancient aspects of utterance, musical or otherwise, interconnect and complement each other. The idiosyncratic quality of the music lies, I believe, in this search for meaningful relationships between modality and contemporary musical idiom. Following my studies at the Tirana Conservatoire in 1982, I worked for three years as Music Director in a remote town in Southern Albania near the border with Greece. The first-hand experience I had from working with folk musicians and listening to ancient songs seems to have had a lasting effect on my creative consciences.”
The CD will be available to American public as of May 28 2008. Here are some of the first reactions:
Naxos 21st Century Classics 8.570428, Kreutzer Quartet:
I came across the Albanian-born Thomas Simaku (b. 1958) in the World Music Days 2000, at which his Soliloquy for Violin solo stood out. I wrote about it as "something for enterprising violinists to seek out - - a piece of unaccompanied violin writing which brings out the instrument's natural genius for passionate expression, fully realised in the young Luxembourg violinist Vania Lecuit's riveting interpretation".
Now it has been joined by similar works for cello & viola, here the centre pieces of a survey of the chamber music for strings by this composer, who now teaches at York. They go well together and each is played compellingly by a member of the Kreutzers. These Solilquies could prove welcome interludes in chamber music recitals for various permutations of instruments. Peter Grahame Woolf, Musical Pointers, London, May 2008
Working in atonal terms, yet with a backdrop of salient musical ideas derived from the sounds of folk idioms heard in the Balkans, both quartets are in the mainstream of today’s modernity. Between these two works the disc includes works for solo instruments - violin, viola and cello. Simaku’s aim in the Due Sotto-Voci is to have the violin singing in two voices with an ‘orchestral body’ that accompanies itself. And if you think that is impossible on one instrument, then suspend belief and listen. Naxos Website, May 2008
Thomas Simaku's string quartets have much to commend them... Simaku has a keen ear for the texture of sounds. He writes sympathetically and perceptively for strings, taking full advantage of the varying timbres in their individual sonorities.These 'voices from heaven' have an animated serenity, quite secular, outside time. Classical Source, Review of British premieres at St. Bartholomew's the Great, London, July 2007
Jun 19, 2008
Jan 22, 2008
The opening story of "LILAC FLOWERS"
Mira’s Lilac
For all my friends and cousins in Albania, whom I spent my unforgettable childhood years with.
When Mira and her husband decided to settle in the area where they live now, the first thing she admired in the front yard were the lilac trees surrounding the house. They face the sun all day long and they bloom at the end of April and beginning of May. The trees were spread out nicely and some of them were pretty high. Mira had always fancied the lilac trees. Perhaps it was the color, perhaps the aroma, perhaps the height of the trees, frankly she did not know what triggered her attraction to the lilac, but it had always been one of here favorite flowers.She often remembered her home in Albania, she recalls the back yard, which saw the sun all day long. There was a big lilac tree planted against the wall in the back of the house.. It was the tallest lilac tree in the village and the first one to bloom. Mira was her parent’s only daughter and she had the enjoyment of cutting the first bunch of flowers and making a big bouquet to put in the house’s entrance hall. The aroma was so nice, so delightful. Every one entering that hall would comment on the welcoming lilac aroma. Many neighbors and cousins envied Mira’s lilac bouquet and Mira surely felt very proud.Although she was but a little girl, still at elementary school, she now remembers some of her bitter childhood moments related to the first lilac flower bloom in her home in Albania.* * *Mira’s lilac bloomed the last week of April every year. Mira’s teachers knew about it and they always sent her home to get a bouquet for the classroom, and on May fifth they repeatedly asked Mira to ask her mother or grandmother to send a big bouquet of lilac flowers to school, to put them on wreaths which were to be placed by the monument in the village center, a lapidary put up in memory of three partisans from the village killed during World War two.May fifth was Martyrs’ Day in Albania, and during the ceremony 8 year old children who were called “fatosa”, were to be accepted in the ranks of “pioneers” a higher organization, one other division of hierarchy which separated the masses of Albanian people.The teachers sent Mira home to collect the lilac flowers, and at that precise moment feelings and emotions started to stir up inside her soul The first one was Mira’s pride, having the first lilac flower tree bloom and having these flowers decorate the wreaths, being seen by so many people and honoring the Martyrs, the other feeling was bitterness, the feeling of exclusion. Bitterness was because of the fact that although Mira was the best student in the class she was never allowed to be a “roje nderi” (a honor guard) at the monument. A few selected pupils had that honor. Mira was engulfed with these feelings, traveling to and from home carrying the flowers.She never understood until she grew up, why she was never allowed to participate in these observances , why she was not allowed to honor the martyrs or to read the oath to the young children entering the higher ranks. Her father used to say, unfairly Mira thought, “It’s not your turn, to carry those duties”. Mira was always confused and astonished to see students who barely passed the class to have the chance of standing guard at the monument during the ceremonies. That wasn’t fair, she always thought, but never found the right answer as to why she or her brothers were not allowed to perform that honor.Mira always thought and expected some kind of reward for doing so well at school but nothing like that had happened to her so far. She never quite understood her father’s statement “Mira it is not your turn dear”.Confused and convinced that she would never be able to be included Mira provided the flowers with hope, but every May fifth found her heart broken. She felt unable to honor the partisans on that day especially since her cousins from her mom’s village visited too. Their village had been anticommunist and had only “ballists” during the war. Ballists were never remembered as fallen martyrs, on the contrary they were forgotten, hence no monuments to fallen martyrs there. So every May fifth school children would come and pay tribute and respect to the three partisans in Mira’s village.Mira’s father was aware of her distress and tried to help her by saying “You are included, honey, you see, your flowers are there!”“Look” the mother would add “everything is green and the beautiful lilac is yours! Be happy for that!”This somehow helped Mira feel better, but she always wanted to go to the bottom of the problem: why she was excluded…Mira was not the only one excluded, so many more children from the school were not integrated in the honor ceremonies. Only those whose families related by blood to the partisans were allowed. Those with ballists in the family were brutally barred and stereotyped. Children belonging to the latter class did not discuss among them any such things. Mira was always told by her parents not to talk about it. “It is not a big deal” they had told her and her brother, but Mira wanted to know more.Mariana was Mira’s best friend and coincidentally she missed the ceremonies every may fifth pretending she was sick. Her parents did not let her attend any events on that day. Mariana’s grandfather had been a political prisoner and had died in jail because he had fostered diversants.That was May Fifth for Mira and some of her friends…The evening of the very same day was quite different! Every year Mira made a big bouquet of Lilac flowers and brought it to the only Uncle she had. It was his birthday and Mira loved family celebrations. It was fun, she always got something special in those celebrations and could wait no longer until the day went by and evening with the special “tri-eggs cake” came. Grandmother always cooked the same cake for Mira’s Uncle and all was warm and nice in the house. They closed the doors, listened to folk music and always stayed up late celebrating.The colors were not any more political in the house.There in the household everyone was treated fairly and everyone was happy. This had always made Mira’s mood change and forget about the rest of the day. Every year May Fifth repeated itself in the same way.Lilac flowers were needed again the next day. May sixth was Saint George’s feast. Then, the only unofficial religious day, which the authorities overlooked. All women visited the graveyard. All tombs were decorated with flowers, the dead were all the same. No distinction there, no matter whose family they came from, the dead were buried in rows… they were not discriminated anymore. Crowds of the living were different. They visited according to clans and very much separated from each other. Mira always visited the village graveyard with her Grandmother, Mother and Aunties. She recalled when old ladies used to sit down and murmured prayers in secret as they were not supposed to pray for the dead. “The dead are gone and there is no God”. God was the forbidden word. Albania was supposed to be an atheist country and practicing religion was a crime. A crime to pray at the tomb of the dead! A crime to say a prayer for peace! A crime to mention God’s name, and astonishingly a day before, there was said: “Eternal be the memory of the fallen”.What a contradiction Mira thought…if the dead are gone forever as the government people and teachers proclaimed, then what is to remain on this earth for them or in their memory. A lot of confusion reigned in the young girl’s mind but she had to go with the crowd. That was what her father had said “Walk with the crowd and don’t separate, otherwise your wings will be cut off…”What wings Mira wondered??? She never understood her father then!While prayer was forbidden, loud wailing and crying was allowed. It was like “a choir of crows there”, Mira’s dad had said. Women used to scream while weeping for the dead, as they let it all out, with swollen eyes and runny noises. After a good cry, they returned to their homes.Mira always got scared from this part of St. George’s feast. The whole village was crying out loud for the dead, every year on the very same day. If you ever visited a place on that day, you could easily tell where the graveyard was, without seeing it. The crying came as a scaring noise and the mixing of voices reminded Mira of the scariest movies she had ever seen. She did not like that day. It was so sad; it reminded her of the death, of the end of life. She did not know about God. He did not exist there, in the Albanian Land God was No One. Mira was told at school you die and you’re done with the world.That was scary and Mira did not want to accept it. She felt she had a purpose to be here on earth but she could not figure it out by herself. Grandmother often mentioned there is God but Mira’s teacher had ruled out God’s existence. There was no soul. There was only the body. The world is material. This was explained so scientifically at school that Mira had begun to think “Grandmother is wrong”.God was a thing that was part of old thinking. God is nothing. Life is on earth and when it ends, it really does end. And this was terrifying but that was what they were told at school and that was supposed to be true.Mira was torn between what grandmother had said and what was written in her books. She had learnt a few prayers, but was told to say them only in secret and in silence.In the end she was happy to do her job, prepare the flowers and after school visit the graveyard. On the way back Mira and her friends would taste all the cookies prepared for that day. They used to have dozens of them as each family prepared them and gave them as a gesture of charity, but Mira never analyzed deeply the true meaning of that tradition. She was lost at the end of the day in the beauty of the surrounding flowers in that first week of May. Although the trauma was repeating itself each year, at the moment of time she paid attention to the beauty of flowers without paying attention to the messages her sub conscience was receiving….When communism fell, after the wire removal, she met God and understood her purpose in life. Mira understood her father’s efforts to keep a balance between what the government was teaching through moral-politic education and the true morale, God and everything else.That must had been very hard for faithful and religious people whose right to practice religion was brutally taken away from them and was considered a political crime.What a difficult task Mira thought as she remembered her parents, what an emotional and psychological stress they carried along with the heavy load of bringing up their children in the poorest country of the continent. She tried to understand the burden they carried over their shoulders but all she could do now was help them understand how appreciative their children were and express gratitude to them, she hoped to help heal the hearts of a lost generation, as she named it that of her parents…They had had an optimistic childhood, hoping that after the war things would turn out for the best, but their life turned upside down, fed with the worst ideology ever seen in the world, suppressed and tyrannized, killed and thrown away, their generation was forbidden freedom of thought and speech, was punished for believing in God, was totally thrown at the doors of starvation, it was the generation that needed another lifetime to heal.* * *These thoughts were going through Mira’s head in her new country, in her own home, among her own lilac flowers. She had so many flowers now and so did the neighbors around her. None envied her lilac and Mira did not mind it anymore. There was no body to take her lilacs away and use them for any political purposes. There was no oath to be taken to enter a higher political organization rank. Everything was free and felt free. She appreciated that freedom more than anyone else around. There was not a party secretary to ignore here or look angry at her, clearly excluding from the rest. They were daughters and sons of the communists, who verbally insulted her daily reminding her she did not belong to their class. That had come to an end now.Mira a mother herself, was far away from that time, and knew that the memories were only memories. They were not there to haunt her, but just a reminder to appreciate the equality and the freedom, to enjoy the present and to respect others. She enjoyed every flower and she observed her daughter Sarah, in the garden. Sarah liked the lilacs just like Mira as a little girl. She looked at them, smelled them and gently cut a few of them and smiling approached Mira who was sitting in the sun.“Mommy, here you are, a few lilac flowers for you”
“Are these the same as those in Albania Mom” she asked?“Oh sweet heart, thank you”, Mira said as she hugged her daughter and received the flowers, “Yes dear, yes, they are, exactly the same flower… Flowers are the same everywhere in the world, but only here we have plenty, plenty of them and everything else”
“Mom I made a big bouquet” Sarah continued, “Can I put them in the front porch to have the house smell lilac all over…”“Oh yeah honey” Mira said, “Please do it…”As Sarah went to take care of the flowers Mira started to think: “May be one day I will tell her about my lilac.” She hoped not to mention too much of May fifth and sixth to her…It was enough, to have her heart broken as a child. She wanted her children to grow without the fear and the exclusion Mira went through and she hurried to join her daughter in fixing the flowers together, and to enjoy the spring in the yard, in the home and in the hearts of everyone. It was about time…
For all my friends and cousins in Albania, whom I spent my unforgettable childhood years with.
When Mira and her husband decided to settle in the area where they live now, the first thing she admired in the front yard were the lilac trees surrounding the house. They face the sun all day long and they bloom at the end of April and beginning of May. The trees were spread out nicely and some of them were pretty high. Mira had always fancied the lilac trees. Perhaps it was the color, perhaps the aroma, perhaps the height of the trees, frankly she did not know what triggered her attraction to the lilac, but it had always been one of here favorite flowers.She often remembered her home in Albania, she recalls the back yard, which saw the sun all day long. There was a big lilac tree planted against the wall in the back of the house.. It was the tallest lilac tree in the village and the first one to bloom. Mira was her parent’s only daughter and she had the enjoyment of cutting the first bunch of flowers and making a big bouquet to put in the house’s entrance hall. The aroma was so nice, so delightful. Every one entering that hall would comment on the welcoming lilac aroma. Many neighbors and cousins envied Mira’s lilac bouquet and Mira surely felt very proud.Although she was but a little girl, still at elementary school, she now remembers some of her bitter childhood moments related to the first lilac flower bloom in her home in Albania.* * *Mira’s lilac bloomed the last week of April every year. Mira’s teachers knew about it and they always sent her home to get a bouquet for the classroom, and on May fifth they repeatedly asked Mira to ask her mother or grandmother to send a big bouquet of lilac flowers to school, to put them on wreaths which were to be placed by the monument in the village center, a lapidary put up in memory of three partisans from the village killed during World War two.May fifth was Martyrs’ Day in Albania, and during the ceremony 8 year old children who were called “fatosa”, were to be accepted in the ranks of “pioneers” a higher organization, one other division of hierarchy which separated the masses of Albanian people.The teachers sent Mira home to collect the lilac flowers, and at that precise moment feelings and emotions started to stir up inside her soul The first one was Mira’s pride, having the first lilac flower tree bloom and having these flowers decorate the wreaths, being seen by so many people and honoring the Martyrs, the other feeling was bitterness, the feeling of exclusion. Bitterness was because of the fact that although Mira was the best student in the class she was never allowed to be a “roje nderi” (a honor guard) at the monument. A few selected pupils had that honor. Mira was engulfed with these feelings, traveling to and from home carrying the flowers.She never understood until she grew up, why she was never allowed to participate in these observances , why she was not allowed to honor the martyrs or to read the oath to the young children entering the higher ranks. Her father used to say, unfairly Mira thought, “It’s not your turn, to carry those duties”. Mira was always confused and astonished to see students who barely passed the class to have the chance of standing guard at the monument during the ceremonies. That wasn’t fair, she always thought, but never found the right answer as to why she or her brothers were not allowed to perform that honor.Mira always thought and expected some kind of reward for doing so well at school but nothing like that had happened to her so far. She never quite understood her father’s statement “Mira it is not your turn dear”.Confused and convinced that she would never be able to be included Mira provided the flowers with hope, but every May fifth found her heart broken. She felt unable to honor the partisans on that day especially since her cousins from her mom’s village visited too. Their village had been anticommunist and had only “ballists” during the war. Ballists were never remembered as fallen martyrs, on the contrary they were forgotten, hence no monuments to fallen martyrs there. So every May fifth school children would come and pay tribute and respect to the three partisans in Mira’s village.Mira’s father was aware of her distress and tried to help her by saying “You are included, honey, you see, your flowers are there!”“Look” the mother would add “everything is green and the beautiful lilac is yours! Be happy for that!”This somehow helped Mira feel better, but she always wanted to go to the bottom of the problem: why she was excluded…Mira was not the only one excluded, so many more children from the school were not integrated in the honor ceremonies. Only those whose families related by blood to the partisans were allowed. Those with ballists in the family were brutally barred and stereotyped. Children belonging to the latter class did not discuss among them any such things. Mira was always told by her parents not to talk about it. “It is not a big deal” they had told her and her brother, but Mira wanted to know more.Mariana was Mira’s best friend and coincidentally she missed the ceremonies every may fifth pretending she was sick. Her parents did not let her attend any events on that day. Mariana’s grandfather had been a political prisoner and had died in jail because he had fostered diversants.That was May Fifth for Mira and some of her friends…The evening of the very same day was quite different! Every year Mira made a big bouquet of Lilac flowers and brought it to the only Uncle she had. It was his birthday and Mira loved family celebrations. It was fun, she always got something special in those celebrations and could wait no longer until the day went by and evening with the special “tri-eggs cake” came. Grandmother always cooked the same cake for Mira’s Uncle and all was warm and nice in the house. They closed the doors, listened to folk music and always stayed up late celebrating.The colors were not any more political in the house.There in the household everyone was treated fairly and everyone was happy. This had always made Mira’s mood change and forget about the rest of the day. Every year May Fifth repeated itself in the same way.Lilac flowers were needed again the next day. May sixth was Saint George’s feast. Then, the only unofficial religious day, which the authorities overlooked. All women visited the graveyard. All tombs were decorated with flowers, the dead were all the same. No distinction there, no matter whose family they came from, the dead were buried in rows… they were not discriminated anymore. Crowds of the living were different. They visited according to clans and very much separated from each other. Mira always visited the village graveyard with her Grandmother, Mother and Aunties. She recalled when old ladies used to sit down and murmured prayers in secret as they were not supposed to pray for the dead. “The dead are gone and there is no God”. God was the forbidden word. Albania was supposed to be an atheist country and practicing religion was a crime. A crime to pray at the tomb of the dead! A crime to say a prayer for peace! A crime to mention God’s name, and astonishingly a day before, there was said: “Eternal be the memory of the fallen”.What a contradiction Mira thought…if the dead are gone forever as the government people and teachers proclaimed, then what is to remain on this earth for them or in their memory. A lot of confusion reigned in the young girl’s mind but she had to go with the crowd. That was what her father had said “Walk with the crowd and don’t separate, otherwise your wings will be cut off…”What wings Mira wondered??? She never understood her father then!While prayer was forbidden, loud wailing and crying was allowed. It was like “a choir of crows there”, Mira’s dad had said. Women used to scream while weeping for the dead, as they let it all out, with swollen eyes and runny noises. After a good cry, they returned to their homes.Mira always got scared from this part of St. George’s feast. The whole village was crying out loud for the dead, every year on the very same day. If you ever visited a place on that day, you could easily tell where the graveyard was, without seeing it. The crying came as a scaring noise and the mixing of voices reminded Mira of the scariest movies she had ever seen. She did not like that day. It was so sad; it reminded her of the death, of the end of life. She did not know about God. He did not exist there, in the Albanian Land God was No One. Mira was told at school you die and you’re done with the world.That was scary and Mira did not want to accept it. She felt she had a purpose to be here on earth but she could not figure it out by herself. Grandmother often mentioned there is God but Mira’s teacher had ruled out God’s existence. There was no soul. There was only the body. The world is material. This was explained so scientifically at school that Mira had begun to think “Grandmother is wrong”.God was a thing that was part of old thinking. God is nothing. Life is on earth and when it ends, it really does end. And this was terrifying but that was what they were told at school and that was supposed to be true.Mira was torn between what grandmother had said and what was written in her books. She had learnt a few prayers, but was told to say them only in secret and in silence.In the end she was happy to do her job, prepare the flowers and after school visit the graveyard. On the way back Mira and her friends would taste all the cookies prepared for that day. They used to have dozens of them as each family prepared them and gave them as a gesture of charity, but Mira never analyzed deeply the true meaning of that tradition. She was lost at the end of the day in the beauty of the surrounding flowers in that first week of May. Although the trauma was repeating itself each year, at the moment of time she paid attention to the beauty of flowers without paying attention to the messages her sub conscience was receiving….When communism fell, after the wire removal, she met God and understood her purpose in life. Mira understood her father’s efforts to keep a balance between what the government was teaching through moral-politic education and the true morale, God and everything else.That must had been very hard for faithful and religious people whose right to practice religion was brutally taken away from them and was considered a political crime.What a difficult task Mira thought as she remembered her parents, what an emotional and psychological stress they carried along with the heavy load of bringing up their children in the poorest country of the continent. She tried to understand the burden they carried over their shoulders but all she could do now was help them understand how appreciative their children were and express gratitude to them, she hoped to help heal the hearts of a lost generation, as she named it that of her parents…They had had an optimistic childhood, hoping that after the war things would turn out for the best, but their life turned upside down, fed with the worst ideology ever seen in the world, suppressed and tyrannized, killed and thrown away, their generation was forbidden freedom of thought and speech, was punished for believing in God, was totally thrown at the doors of starvation, it was the generation that needed another lifetime to heal.* * *These thoughts were going through Mira’s head in her new country, in her own home, among her own lilac flowers. She had so many flowers now and so did the neighbors around her. None envied her lilac and Mira did not mind it anymore. There was no body to take her lilacs away and use them for any political purposes. There was no oath to be taken to enter a higher political organization rank. Everything was free and felt free. She appreciated that freedom more than anyone else around. There was not a party secretary to ignore here or look angry at her, clearly excluding from the rest. They were daughters and sons of the communists, who verbally insulted her daily reminding her she did not belong to their class. That had come to an end now.Mira a mother herself, was far away from that time, and knew that the memories were only memories. They were not there to haunt her, but just a reminder to appreciate the equality and the freedom, to enjoy the present and to respect others. She enjoyed every flower and she observed her daughter Sarah, in the garden. Sarah liked the lilacs just like Mira as a little girl. She looked at them, smelled them and gently cut a few of them and smiling approached Mira who was sitting in the sun.“Mommy, here you are, a few lilac flowers for you”
“Are these the same as those in Albania Mom” she asked?“Oh sweet heart, thank you”, Mira said as she hugged her daughter and received the flowers, “Yes dear, yes, they are, exactly the same flower… Flowers are the same everywhere in the world, but only here we have plenty, plenty of them and everything else”
“Mom I made a big bouquet” Sarah continued, “Can I put them in the front porch to have the house smell lilac all over…”“Oh yeah honey” Mira said, “Please do it…”As Sarah went to take care of the flowers Mira started to think: “May be one day I will tell her about my lilac.” She hoped not to mention too much of May fifth and sixth to her…It was enough, to have her heart broken as a child. She wanted her children to grow without the fear and the exclusion Mira went through and she hurried to join her daughter in fixing the flowers together, and to enjoy the spring in the yard, in the home and in the hearts of everyone. It was about time…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)