030: Valentina Goncharova, Campanelli

Transcendent experimental neoclassical with electronic impulses.

Just a quick thanks to everyone who has maintained or upgraded to a paid subscription. My posts will remain free to all but your support is unbelievably appreciated.

Today’s recommendation caught my attention the second I heard a clanging bell, or ‘campanelli’ in Italian, the first album in 30 years from Kyiv-born, Tallinn-based composer, violinist, and “conservatoire deviant” Valentina Goncharova.¹

It’s my first brush with her work but I was so instantly taken by it that I immediately went looking for more and found Recordings 1987-1991, Vol. 1, an enchanting batch of home-recorded electroacoustic compositions inspired by a wide swath of interests.² Now I’m going to quote from the album bio because each additional detail had my head spinning in pleasure and awe:

The career of Valentina Goncharova (b. Kyiv 1953) shares parallels with those associated with the broader new music movement of the 20th century and the dissemination of home recording technologies. Valentina’s was a youth spent immersed in the world of classical music study under Soviet rule, first in Kyiv and later in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) from the age of 16. With the supervision of her professors she learned concert violin and developed alternate playing styles alongside skilled pianists. A student of the Leningrad conservatoire from 1969 to 1983, her repertoire included music for violin and later expanded to contemporary music composition. The improvisatory nature of free jazz and then budding experimental rock circles also intrigued Valentina during this period. Departing from the rules of the conservatoire, she briefly performed in underground rock clubs alongside future members of the industrial group Pop- Mechanika (Popular Mechanics). This perpetual state of flux is central to the variety found within ‘Recordings Vol. 1’, though as opposed to any degree of uncertainty Valentina’s practice is one in flux by way of earnest curiosity.

Back to Campanelli, on which you can certainly hear elements of all the experimental influences that shaped her explorations. It’s a thrilling listen, from the intense horror film synth of “Creation” into the Gothic nightmare fantasy of “Halloween,” which conjures for me an imagined sensation of being chased down a dark hall in a labyrinthian castle.

I also really love “Up to Beauty,” a mysteriously sinister piece of music, all strings and the sounds of sirens dangling loosely, both together and apart, and the utterly enthralling dirge-like “Return to Myself,” perhaps a requiem for a previous self. Campanelli is strange and beautiful, a gorgeous fusion of the violin’s acoustic humanity with the pulsing electro-drone of synths and drum machines. Imagine Éliane Radigue scoring Tarkovsky. Genuinely captivating stuff.

Just Read: “Safeway” by Frederick Barthelme³ (In the collection Moon Deluxe)
Just Watched: The White Lotus, 2x4: “In the Sandbox”

1. This is silly but certainly I’m not the first or only person who will be reminded of the fake Martin Scorsese film Goncharov.

2. Additional quote from that album’s bio: “Pushing further into an exploration of solo electro-acoustic sounds, she took to home taping on a modified Olimp reel to reel recorder. Intrigued by the manipulability of dubbing and the fresh sounds of DIY effects chains, Goncharova developed pickups alongside her husband Igor Zubkov. Her infatuation with the music of Stockhausen, Xenakis, Ganelin Trio and Pierre Boulez channels through considerations of space and erratic sound design, the three movements of ‘Metamorphoses’ embodying this textural approach to musique concrete. The compositional skills developed in Leningrad unfold in the romantic gestures of ‘Higher Frequencies’, whilst manipulated cello combines with synthesise keys across ‘Passageway To Eternity’. The slow, pulsating drone soundscapes recall the likes of Robert Rutman’s US Steel Cello Ensemble or even deep listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros.”

3. Yes, Donald’s brother.