Debussy / Komitas: Music in Time of War

All journeys begin with a single step. Kirill Gerstein’s album of works by Debussy and Komitas, Music in Time of War, evolved from the pianist’s ambition to learn Debussy’s 12 Études “for personal amusement and self-improvement”, he tells Apple Music Classical. “These pieces are Debussy at his most elevated—they’re not drily analytical studies, but the studies of a painter.” While the pandemic gave Gerstein time to learn the Études, recording them sparked a hunt for suitable music to accompany them. It was then that Gerstein turned to the Armenian composer Komitas. Debussy’s Études were composed in 1915 at the height of the First World War. But just a year later, in 1916, Komitas conceived his Armenian Dances in response to a very different but equally horrific chapter. Under the cover of war in Europe, over one million Armenians were being murdered at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. The Armenian Genocide, as it has since become known, “is still not universally acknowledged or recognised,” reflects Gerstein. And there is no doubt that the Armenian Dances, full of references to traditional Armenian folk songs, collected by Komitas himself, are a direct cry of anguish in response to the killings and to the horrors he witnessed before escaping to Europe. So—here are two composers united by two wartime tragedies. And yet their connection goes so much deeper. In 1906, Komitas visited Paris, a city where, just 10 years later, he was to spend his final days in a psychiatric hospital. There, he founded a choir and mixed with the likes of fellow composers Saint-Saëns, d’Indy and perhaps Debussy himself. In any case, Debussy caught wind of Komitas’ music, and there is one piece that binds these two figures inextricably together. “‘Antuni’ is an iconic song for Armenians,” reveals Gerstein, “but it is also the song about which Debussy is quoted to have said that, ‘Even had Komitas composed just this one song, he would already be considered a great composer.’” Debussy was to reflect the themes of destruction and desolation in “Antuni” in his own song, “Noël des enfants qui n’ont plus de maisons” (“A carol for homeless children”), first performed at a benefit concert for victims of the Armenian Genocide. “These two songs neighbour each other in history and in the output of these two men,” says Gerstein, “so ‘Antuni’ became part of the selection of Komitas songs that we recorded—and then, of course, we had to include the Debussy song.” Debussy contributed to the war effort, says Gerstein, by taking part in many more benefit concerts. “One of the pieces of his that he would often programme is the Chansons de Bilitis,” he says, “though they were written a lot earlier.” So one of the challenges of this recording was finding a singer who was equally comfortable singing in French and in Armenian. “I’m very happy that I found Ruzan Mantashyan, who is I think a fantastic singer. In fact, when Ruzan and I agreed to collaborate, I didn’t know that her great, great-grand-uncle was the sponsor of Komitas—he had paid for his studies in Berlin and had bought him a concert grand piano.” Gerstein connected the remainder of his Debussy choices either to the war itself, or to the Études. The 1915 two-piano work En blanc et noir was, says Gerstein, composed within three months of the Études and “essentially shares the same musical DNA”, while the 6 Épigraphes antiques was the only piece that Debussy wrote in the year the war started. For both works, Gerstein performs alongside two superb fellow pianists—Katia Skanavi (Épigraphes) and the composer Thomas Adès (En blanc et noir). “En blanc et noir is maybe Debussy’s most overt anti-war statement with its references to Lutheran hymns and patriotic French quotations,” says Gerstein. “Thomas Adès and I have played it many times in concert, and I have always felt that he brings a compositional insight to playing this piece that makes the interpretation quite unique. “Playing four hands on one instrument is really the most intimate thing you can do,” Gerstein says of the Épigraphes, “and the sound has to match because otherwise it does not work. Katia is a pianist that I’ve very long admired, and so I’m happy that we can do something for the first time together on record. She studied in France and feels very close to French musical culture.” Gerstein rounds his programme off with late pieces by Debussy that, he relates, were included in publications to raise money for the war effort. “There’s the Berceuse héroïque that was written in support of the Belgian people after the invasion by the German army. There’s the Étude retrouvée, which is the one etude that Debussy discarded to keep his collection to just 12. And the Élégie, which is the first piece he wrote after his cancer surgery.” Finally, among the group of late piano pieces, is 1917’s Les Soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon (Evenings lit up by burning coals), composed as a gift to the composer’s coal merchant as thanks for sourcing then scarce supplies of fuel. It was the last solo piano piece that Debussy would write. As Gerstein began to work on the album, its theme took on more and more significance as conflicts arose in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and Nagorno-Karabakh where so many Armenians recently lost their lives. “Little did I know that war and genocide would become so present in our lives,” says Gerstein. “So what does it mean to make an album in 2024? One of my thoughts is that we are helping audiences to confront or to be made aware of problems—not in a news context or with a heavy historical talk and lecture, but with culture. This is why culture is so relevant.”