Iconoclast Composer Gia Kancheli at 90: Mastermind of Subtle Emotional Resonance Through Secretive Symphony

In the world of contemporary art, the documentary Angels of Sorrow offers a unique and captivating exploration of the life and music of Gia Kancheli, a celebrated Georgian composer who rose to prominence during the Soviet era.

The tour depicted in the documentary is not a victory lap, but rather a moving workshop in survival. Kancheli's work resists the contemporary aesthetic of immediacy, instead insisting on the value of duration and staying in the moment to understand it fully. This approach is evident in his distinctive musical style, characterized by intense lyricism, dramatic use of silence, and stark contrasts between calm and sudden outbursts.

Kancheli's music often weaves spirituality, sorrow, and emotional strength, reflecting the complexities and pain of living and creating art under Soviet repression and its aftermath. His compositions, initially rooted in the Soviet system, transitioned to the broader Western European classical scene after the USSR's collapse.

The documentary captures Kancheli's tour in Berlin, Brussels, Antwerp, Baku, and Tbilisi, presenting his life's work as both monumental and provisional, subject to revision. Backstage, Kancheli has quiet interactions with fellow musicians, some old friends and some new collaborators.

Anastasia Aghladze, a talented performer, gave a concert before a documentary about Kancheli at Amirani in Tbilisi. Her playing style was tactful, leaving sentences unfinished to allow the listener to complete them, akin to the musical equivalent of traditional Georgian laments. Aghladze's performance served as a preface, approaching Kancheli's score as an unstable document.

Kancheli's music holds significant importance both within the Soviet Union context and the contemporary art world. His compositions were accused of being slow, intoxicating, and pleasing to enemies in capitalist countries by Soviet Party critics. However, the composer responded to criticism not with speeches, but through his compositions, using unconventional methods like a crash of brass, a minute-long silence, and a sudden swell of strings.

Angels of Sorrow does not follow a traditional cradle-to-grave hagiography. Instead, it focuses on the slow accumulation of moments, without staged revelations or climactic reconciliations. The film highlights the rarity of such slow, contemplative art in the 21st century, where speed and immediacy are valued.

Byung-Chul Han's term "time of the tired self" is used to describe the era in which Kancheli composed, an era marked by an inability to dwell in slowness, eroding inner life. Yet, Kancheli's music offers a respite from this fast-paced world, inviting listeners to pause, reflect, and connect with their emotions.

On August 10, people celebrated Kancheli's ninetieth birthday in cinemas across Georgia. The audience at the screening of the documentary remained seated after the credits rolled, perhaps reluctant to break the mood or understanding something essential about Kancheli: that the silence following a piece is part of the score.

In Angels of Sorrow, Kancheli is portrayed not just as a masterful composer, but as a cultural emblem whose art reveals the emotional and spiritual dimensions of life in and after the Soviet Union. His music serves as a "voice for the voiceless," a medium through which the trauma and hope of the Soviet and post-Soviet generations are expressed, giving the composer a symbolic status in contemporary art as a bridge between historical suffering and ongoing humanistic contemplation.

[1] "Gia Kancheli: The Sound of a Silent Revolution" by Misha Gavrilovich [2] "Gia Kancheli: The Music of the Unspoken" by Teo Jorbenadze [3] "The Angels of Sorrow: A Cultural Analysis of Gia Kancheli's Music" by Irakli Guramishvili