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Anton Batagov
To the memory of Dmitri Pokrovsky ________________________________ N'Caged vocal ensemble: Asya Sorshneva violin / viola
Playing time: 49:38
Music composed by Anton Batagov, 1994 Special thanks to: Karina Abramyan
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Anton Batagov: THE BOBEOBI STORY
This music was written in 1994. Now I'd like to tell you something before you listen to this recording. I wrote Bobeobi (pronounced as Bo-beh-óh-bee) for The Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble. Meeting this unique person was one of the most important events of my life. We met in late 1992. He was 22 years older than me, but it so happened that we became friends. Thanks to him, I discovered the world of folk songs, and he showed me exactly the door to that world through which I entered it in a completely natural way – otherwise I would very likely have simply not been able to find where the entrance was. I realized that, first of all, these songs were more contemporary than any contemporary music. Secondly, this was a “minimalism” even more radical than so-called minimalism. Thirdly (and this is the most important thing), everything there was real, not made up. This is the kind of music that emerges neither from compositional techniques nor from speculative concepts and systems of philosophical coordinates, but as a manifestation of life in harmony with Earth and Heavens. There is no fear of death in these songs, because village people who seem to be living through the conventional milestones of their earthly existence actually live in a dimension where there is no place for death. This can be heard in every note. Sometimes this can also be experienced in music written by composers, but the power and truth of folk music simply cannot manifest itself in any other “format” of art. The most interesting fact is that Pokrovsky became deeply interested in folk songs and created his legendary ensemble quite unexpectedly. In general, he was interested in avant-garde music. In the USSR, it was forbidden. One day he went on a folklore expedition and heard original village songs. And it was like a eureka moment. In those days, these songs were not heard anywhere – only in their natural environment, that is, in villages. Everything that was presented as “folklore” performed by official folk music ensembles was combed and neutered, and had nothing to do with genuine tradition. To learn from the village people to sing exactly as they do and to go on stage with it was a brave and unexpected attack on the Soviet official culture. No one had actually heard this type of music and this manner of singing and playing. It sounded even more unconventional than the “avant-garde”. These songs had even more energy and freedom than rock music. It was freedom that was banned in any form in the USSR, but in this case, try to ban it: do you want to ban Russian folk songs? It was a knockout. Pokrovsky was the embodiment of freedom. He was a person who never rode the tracks of rules and templates and never obeyed instructions from “above”. His ensemble became not just a “super-successful collective”. Their performances gave people a charge of true freedom and inner strength. The Gorbachev era came, and the ensemble began to tour the West. Of course, it was a sensation and a triumph. But let's not forget that Pokrovsky came to folk songs through contemporary music. So it was not surprising that the ensemble immediately engaged in collaborations with such artists as Paul Winter and Peter Gabriel, as well as some leading avant-garde composers. In the early 90's, the Pokrovsky Ensemble recorded a unique album: Stravinsky's Les Noces. The singers performed vocal parts, and the parts of four pianos and percussion were played by four Yamaha Disklavier MIDI pianos and an Emulator sampling module, all controlled by a Macintosh computer. Pokrovsky loved all this technology. On this album, Les Noces is surrounded with songs that became Stravinsky's “building material”. The album was released in the U.S. on Nonesuch record label. Of course, it was a great success. When Dmitri and I met, he played this recording for me and said: “Write a composition for us”. And he confessed that he was planning to practically stop singing folk songs and switch to contemporary music. And he would like composers to write music for his ensemble that would be based on folklore not the way it was in Soviet times, but would continue Stravinsky's approach. Also, he was scheduled to begin teaching a course on the history of Russian avant-garde at Dartmouth College in 1996. I wrote a piece for the Pokrovsky Ensemble. He examined the score and said: “Well, this will be our next hit”. And he started to discuss this project with Nonesuch. But it was not destined to happen. Bobeobi was performed only once: in Moscow at the Alternativa festival in 1995. Live voices were accompanied by sampling electronics playing all the instrumental parts. On June 29, 1996, Dmitri came to visit me and died of a ruptured aorta. He felt sick on the way from the subway station. He could barely walk. I called an ambulance. It took too long. He was 52 years old. The Pokrovsky Ensemble continued to exist without him, but split into two ensembles. At first I thought it would still be possible to record my piece. But then I realized I couldn't. I mean, of course, everything is possible in some sense, but, with all my respect for all the musicians, I would not be able to do it without Dmitri. The score was lying on the shelf, and I was waiting for the moment when the configuration that would allow me to record and release this music would take shape. And it happened 30 years later. The performers are the unique vocal ensemble N'Caged, with whom I have collaborated on several projects over the last 10 years, and no less unique musicians-instrumentalists – also my friends and collaborators: Asya Sorshneva, Olga Demina, Konstantin Efimov, Dmitri Shumilov. No virtual instruments, everything's live. As it is easy to guess, I play the piano, as well as pots and some other cookware objects. For the opportunity to bring all this to life – thanks to Melodiya record label with which I've had many years of creative cooperation and absolute mutual understanding. And now about the music. It's a 50-minute one-movement composition. Actually, there is nothing to say about the music, but about the text – it is necessary. The text is a famous poem by Velimir Khlebnikov written in 1908. Khlebnikov is much more than my favorite poet. There are favorite poets, and then there is Khlebnikov. I felt this pretty early, in my early twenties. And the older I get, the more the scale and depth of his genius impresses me. When I chose his poem to write this music, I was 28. It happened somehow by itself, without a second thought. And much later, when the Buddhist worldview became the basis of my entire life, I realized that when Khlebnikov was inventing “strange” words/syllables and weaving them into the Russian language, he was actually doing what had long existed in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions: they were nothing but mantras. A mantra is a set of sounds and syllables that cannot be translated into any language. Masters who are able to see and know what is inaccessible to us ordinary people transmit this knowledge to us in this form. Such people usually live and practice in the fairway of their traditions and receive direct transmission from their gurus. They explain everything that requires explanation exactly as their guru explained it to them. But sometimes (very, very rarely) it can be done by someone who lives in a completely different context. No one has taught them this knowledge, and no guru-to-disciple transmission has been received. These people simply carry the knowledge of how the world works within themselves. This knowledge is shaped in exactly the same images and formulations that exist in ancient traditions. This happens “in a way unknown to science”. In recent decades, a huge number of charlatans and pseudo-gurus have appeared in the world. Anyone can compile anything from any publicly available sources and pretend to be a “guru”. But at the beginning of the twentieth century there was none of that. Khlebnikov is truly unique. Not only as a poetry genius, but also as a bearer of absolute knowledge about the world. His words can be compared to texts written hundreds and thousands of years ago. He could not read them anywhere. Even if he could, they cannot be understood without explanation. He just wrote it himself. There are only five lines in this poem, plus two more. In them is the whole picture of the world, the principle of functioning formulated exactly as Buddhist philosophy explains it. No one and nothing exists as an independent entity. The world and all beings are a network of interdependent manifestations. They form a pattern that is perceived as reality. We ourselves are the same pattern. It seems to be real because something corresponds to something, something resembles something, and we can even describe something with some ordinary words. But in reality we live not in these coordinates limited by the length of the interval between birth and death, but outside of time, conventions, names, limitations. We live there always. And there we are free.
Bo-beh-óh-bee sang the lips, Beyond all dimensions there lived the Face.
(c) Melodiya 2025 ________________________
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