Evgueni Galperine: Theory of Becoming
ECM New Series

Evgueni Galperine's ECM New Series debut is informed by a number of different things. Its ten pieces could pass for compact mini-soundtracks to film vignettes exploring hugely contrasting subject matter, a quality stemming from the composer's avowed love of cinema and the stylistic possibilities associated with writing for film. Theory of Becoming is also naturally informed by his studies of composition at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSM) and electroacoustic music at the Conservatoire de Boulogne (Paris) as the pieces aren't undoctored performances but rather sound collages assembled from recordings of acoustic and virtual instruments, samples, and computer-based transformations. It's noteworthy that while only three performers are credited in addition to Galperine (electronics, sampling), specifically Masha Vasyukova (voice), Sergei Nakariakov (trumpet), and Sebastien Hurtaud (violoncello), the soundworlds presented on this imaginative release are elaborate constructions teeming with detail and texture.

Galperine's work is also informed, naturally, by influences, those who've affected him emotionally—Mussorgsky, Shostakovich, and Debussy—and those whose influence is perhaps more stylistically discernible, Pärt, Ligeti, and Reich. Minimalism factors into the work also but not in the sense of pulsation or a process-based application; instead, Galperine embraces it in terms of restriction, the idea of maximizing tension and momentum from a minimal number of elements. That he's a composer of Russian and Ukrainian heritage who's resided in Paris since 1990 also had to have had an impact on his creative sensibility. Each piece has been fashioned in accordance with a particular concept or story, the result akin to a gallery-styled presentation of a creator's work, in this case, however, a composer's rather than a visual artist's. Topics ranging from the surrealistic landscapes of Max Ernst's paintings to space travel are among those covered on the recording.

Emblematic of Galperine's filmic approach, This Town Will Burn Before Dawn evokes musically a city's destruction and the hope that survives in spite of devastation. The deep, convulsive groan of Hurtaud's violoncello adds to the lamenting tone of a piece that could pass for a fusion of dark ambient and classical. Distant sirens wail, bells strike, and footsteps trudge amidst organ tones in a sombre tone painting that can't help but invite associations with the horrors currently being inflicted upon Ukraine and its people.

A synthesizer fanfare and insistent rhythm pulse introduce Oumuamua, Space Wanderings, which the composer imagined as a story about someone traveling through space and hoping to discover an answer to the origin of creation. The sleek sound design identifies the sci-fi piece as electronica, though Galperine's material resists being easily slotted into one category. Soudain, le vide, a requiem he wrote the day after a friend's funeral, begins softly with muted brass tones intended to represent a phase of mourning, but then explodes with a blaze of horns, the gesture designed to suggest the soul exiting the body. Horns also burble throughout Cold Front, their ever-swelling declamations presumably a product of Galperine's electronic treatments.

Though Berlioz isn't cited as an influence, the ominous theme lurching through The Wheel Has Come Full Circle calls to mind “Songe d'une nuit du sabbat” from Symphonie fantastique. Many other details distinguish the piece too, however, with the strangulated scrape of a bowed string instrument especially ear-catching. Another memorable piece is Don't Tell for its fairy tale-like blend of whistling, string glissandis, voice fragments, ticking percussion effects, and mellotron-like flute timbres.

Interestingly, in the release booklet Galperine provides background for only four of the ten pieces, he perhaps preferring to let the listener devise narratives for the other six in the absence of interpretative cues. That's as much confirmed in his statement, “I wanted this music to tell stories, but I wanted these ‘stories' to leave the listener a great deal of freedom. It is instrumental music which, I hope, leaves room for a personal journey.” Certainly his material's cinematic richness opens the door for any number of possible interpretations.

February 2023