5 star review of “Byzantine” by Colin Clarke
by Colin Clarke
Magazine: Fanfare, Issue 45:3
This disc showcases both Byzantine chant of the early Christian era and its journey through the ages, and the talents of “chanter” Nektaria Karantzi. Of particular interest are those pieces dedicated to the Theotokos (the Mother of God), an area where Karantzi herself has focused her research.
The music is timeless; so is Karantzi’s voice, recorded with a nice amount of reverberation. The pieces appear here in their most simple and most potent form: one voice, offering herself to the Christian God. It’s fascinating to hear the way the pitch bends in "Do not turn Your face from me" as a mode of expression. The music is positively transfixing. Probably the best equivalent I can cite for collectors is the Hyperion disc of music by Hildegard of Bingen, A feather on the breath of God (with Emma Kirkby and Gothic Voices), which occupies a similar place of spiritual wisdom and peace, both completely removed from the hustle and bustle of contemporary life. Karantzi’s voice has no or little vibrato, yet is intensely expressive in its own right; and the decorations of the melodic lines add a special intensity to the music.
The appearance of the apolytikia (plural of apolytikon, or dismissal hymn) to two significant recent Saints of the Orthodox Christian world, Saint Nektarios the Bishop of Pentapolis and Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia, is significant, as Nektaria sees herself as a “spiritual child” of the latter: with his encouragement, she started her studies in Byzantine music at an early age. The complex emotions of the text of "Do not turn Your face from me" (with that Christianist capitalization of the “Y”) is a fine example of the plagal mode (fourth tone), the text from the Psalms of David; the emotion here is laden with sadness and disappointment, and the melody’s very directionless gait seems to represent the internal turmoil of the singer.
The familiar Kyrie eleison is heard here in a timeless garb; it is as if it descends straight from the Heavens (it is actually composed by the Monks of Mount Athos and is performed in Greek, Romanian, Russian, and Polish). One of the most beautiful of melodies, surely, is that of Moses at the time of temperance (“... received the Law and drew the people”) and Karantzi delivers it with supreme concentration and awe-inspiring breath control. But surely the most ancient offering here is the Trisagios Hymn (also known as “Trisagion” or “Agios o Theos,” the most ancient entrance hymn from the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Christian Church, to a text by Patriarch Proclus of Constantinople.
Each of the pieces is identified in terms of type (“Epilychnios Hymn” and so on), its place in the liturgy and its Tone is given. Composers are given where possible, including attributions (for example for Gladsome Light, composed by the Hymnographer and Holy Martyr Athenogenes, “according to the testimony of St. Basil”); in the case of the Apolytikion of St. Porphyrios and St. Nektarios, this appears to be an elision of two pieces (the text is differentiated in the documentation via italics and non-italic).
Inevitably belief plays a part in our responses (I find the text of Which God is as great as our God quite inappropriately amusing, as if this is a football league of Gods and Goddesses, with the Christian God at the top of the Premier League), but even as a non-Christian I find the sincerity of Karantzi’s delivery touching on a deep level.
There is huge variety of expression here, from contemplation to the (retrained) exaltation of Christ is Risen, with which the disc closes. A fascinating excursion into the Byzantine world".
Colin Clarke