Today I finished another new piece of mine for solo guitar.
Here is a short background of the piece:
When I was a small kid, my mother used to read me a lot of Russian fairy tales, when I went to bed: breathtaking adventures of strong knights and beautiful princesses, battles between good and evil, interesting stories of common peasants. I had (and still have 🙂 ) a good imagination, so I was always very thrilled by those stories and during a tale I lived through a lot and was always worried about the characters! I remember by heart many of those stories. But I always admired tales about three knights: Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha Popovich. Together they fought many battles and were wise, brave and strong. Unconsciously, from the first time I heard the tale, I started to follow their steps: I tried to understand what is “good” and what is “bad” – I wanted to fight with evil in the world, I did a lot of sport – wanted to be strong, so nobody could offend me or people close to me and I tried to be good at the school – wanted to be wise, so to know, how I could make world a better place 🙂
So this piece is a tribute to Ilya Muromets, a bogatyr, and its full title is “Theme, Variations and Finale (Tribute to Ilya Muromets a bogatyr)”. “Bogatyr or vityaz is a stock character in medieval East Slavic legends (byliny), akin to a Western European knight-errant”. Wikipedia.
About the style of the piece:
I am often asked, in which style do I write music. Well… It’s bit difficult to define. Few years ago I created my own style, which is a fusion of music for different eras: middle ages, renaissance, folk (often Russian folk), jazz, classical, romantic, chill-out, African, ambient… etc. But I try to make all this styles sound very natural together and do it with a good taste, so that Fusion doesn’t become Confusion, like one of my teacher said 😀 It’s not an easy task, but possible. Everything is possible, I believe. It takes a lot of time to study and learn all these different approaches to music and to unite them in one piece. The idea of making such a fusion even now sounds crazy for me – something beyond possible. But somehow it works. You study carefully, then think, plan, let the music through your mind, body and soul, think, plan and then it just comes. But I am not saying, that I create something great… Honestly, I don’t really know, if what I do is worth an attention. Time will show and listener decides, if the music is good. If you will like it, then I will be happy, of course 🙂
Now I am practicing the piece and soon will present a recording of it.
Have a pleasant Spring! 🙂
PS. in Geneva it’s already summer: + 22 Celsius. Hot! (comparing to my 6-year experience in Finland).