Azerbaijani Music

The works chosen for this recording do not follow any particular system or hierarchy. Whoever compiles a programme imposes, by definition, his or her preferences and tastes: when this person is also the performer concerned, the above is true not only for the choice of works but also for the interpretative choices made. These works for piano were composed over a period of some fifty years; they are true Azerbaijani works in that their composers were born in Azerbaijan and generally spent the greater part of their lives there.

Many of these pieces have become standard repertoire there and are performed in concerts and studied in conservatories throughout the country. There are also other works, less familiar and more personal, that are not as popular and as frequently performed. Nargiz Aliyarova discovered these pieces only gradually, over a period of years; she here takes great delight in sharing the intriguing and self-revelatory aspects of this music.

We naturally expect music composed in Azerbaijan to contain elements of native folklore and of traditional music. Our programme, however, is directly opposed to such preconceptions. Trois esquisses à la Watteau (Ismayil Hajibeyov) is a clear evocation of harpsichord music of the Rococo period; Faradj Karayev’s Monsieur Bee Line – Eccentric presents a humorously exaggerated version of the blues style of Debussy’s famous Prélude; Javanshir Gulyev’s Seven Pieces with Interludes in Mugham modes is a deconstruction of traditional modal scales down to ‘molecular’ level and creates an array of novel musical textures.

Nargiz Aliyarova has here assembled many different and aesthetically contrasting pieces into one spectacular anthology.

Jahangir Selimkhanov