Say: 1001 Nights In The Harem, Etc

“[The Violin Concerto] is colourful and consistently engaging, filled with ear-catching textures, rhythms and melodies...The orchestra matches Kopatchinskaja's vigour and suppleness with incisive playing.” --BBC Music Magazine, July 2010 ****

Fazil Say is an accomplished and acclaimed pianist, but the main focus here is on his composing talents. Not so long ago there was a craze for late-18th and 19th-century music that mingled European styles with Turkish traditions. Say demonstrates that this kind of fusion remains fertile in the 21st-century.

His Violin Concerto, written for Patricia Kopatchinskaja who performs here, is colourful and constantly engaging, filled with ear-catching textures, rhythms and melodies. As with Sheherazade, the violin unspools fascinating tales, linking the movements with cadenzas which, as Say says, bind them into an ‘intensely atmospheric unity’. The orchestra match Kopatchinskaja’s vigour and suppleness with incisive playing.

The sleeve, booklet and label go astray on the track order from here. On the disc, Summertimes, a set of cool jazz-flavoured solo piano variations on the Gershwin classic, follows the Concerto. Say displays his technique as well as his understanding of piano-jazz history.

Similarly, on his 110-second alla Turca Fantasia, he mingles Mozart with stride and boogie, but it hardly stands up against Brubeck’s masterpiece Blue Rondo à la Turk! The lovely, evocative and lyrical Patara, also Mozart-inspired, is here performed by piano, soprano, ney (Persian flute) and percussion, forming a magical core for the programme. --Barry Witherden, BBC Music Magazine

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Fazil Say: Mesopotamia & Universe

Fazil Say is a polyvalent artist (classical and jazz pianist, compositor); he dedicates more and more time and energy to composition: after his disk Istanbul Symphony, he pays a tribute to his culture and middle-East with the symphonies Mesopotamia and Universe. These two pieces both include eastern symphonic orchestra and instruments (theremin, flutes, percussions)...

“In these colourful, eclectic, dramatic works...Say impressively flexes his compositional muscles and pianistic dexterity.” --BBC Music Magazine, February 2014 ****

In constructing the Mesopotamia Symphony, Fazil Say attempts to narrate the story of the present day Middle East as well as the culture of Mesopotamia throughout history. It is a land which cradles within it the history of the Sumerians, the culture and beliefs of Assyria, Babylon and Urartu. From there we move to our own day and the contemporary issues facing the Middle East and Turkey; the Kurdish problem, the never-ending wars, terror. In the words of the philosophers, this is a “culture of death.” The region known as Mesopotamia is known as the cradle of culture and humanity; so many things which define us as human being emerged here thousands of years ago.There is a particular “Opera of Instruments” technique prevalent in Say’s symphony. The composer narrates the symphony through two solo instruments, the bass flute and the bass recorder, which represent two children, or more specifically two brothers. These two instruments symbolically and simply represent the “innocent human being.” Tragically, one of the brothers will be shot. The Theremin on the other hand is the symbolic “Angel,” the protector of Mesopotamia in its harrowing drama. For the composer, the Mesopotamia Symphony signifies a call to peace.

The Universe symphony is created from astronomic as opposed to astrologic data. Astronomic data is of course directly dependent on changes in current science and in this work, the composer is using scientific data available in 2012. In this sense, the Big Bang, the expansion of the universe, the contention that Gliese 581 g may be an earth-like planet, the supposition that the God Particle may be found after analysis of dark matter – all of this may be deemed to contain no truth by the future world of science.

Meanings of the harmonic construction
1- Nature: Major tonality
2- Humans: Minor tonality
3- Chaos: Atonality
4- Frequency of the void of the universe: D Note

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