[ Singing ] >> John A. Graham, PhD: We are
delighted to present a program of the Ranina Quartet
from Tbilisi, Georgia who have been invited
to perform in the Homegrown at Home concert series in 2021. Instead of being in Washington,
D.C. right now, we're coming to you today from
Tbilisi, Georgia. The American Folklife Center
will release a concert every other Wednesday from now
through September 22nd at noon east coast U.S. time. Each artist will
be there with you in the chat section
to answer questions. So, be sure to say hello. After each concert is
released, you can find the video on the library's website
or YouTube channel. [ Singing ] >> John Graham: Greetings. My name's John Graham. I'm a historical
musicologist, specializing in the traditional music
of Caucasus Georgia. And it's my privilege
and honor today to present a program
featuring the Ranina Quartet from Tbilisi, Georgia. Members of the ensemble have
been singing traditional music for their entire lives, some
of them from their families, and also singing in many
ensembles in the city, as well as church choirs. And today's program will feature
three ecclesiastical songs, as well as three folk songs, and
finally three urban songs sung at a traditional feast. We know you'll enjoy
this program. And as we go along, I'll
be introducing each segment with specific criteria
and commentary. [ Singing ] Now, today we're going
to present a program of three chants sung in
the Saint Nicholas Basilica in Tbilisi, Georgia, situated
in the Narikala fortress in downtown old town Tbilisi. The program features the first
chant is [foreign phrase], which is holy God, a liturgical
chant, one of the oldest texts in the liturgical write,
or the divine liturgy of the Orthodox church
here in Georgia. The second is a familiar
text, The Lord's Prayer. And the third is an
Easter chant called To Your Resurrection, Lord. And this chant is very
unique because it's sung only when the choir and all of the
clergy process with the icons around the outside of the
church three times at midnight to start the pascal
service of Eastertime. [ Singing ] Georgia liturgical music
comes from early antiquity. As far as we can tell, the first
priests that arrived in Georgia in the early 300s brought with
them melodies from Palestine. They were probably
Greek speaking, probably Greek melodies. But soon the music, like
the ecclesiastical language, vernacularized into Georgian. Now, what we've inherited through oral tradition
is a wealth of three part harmony chants
written down in manuscripts at the turn of the
19th and 20th century, and it's from these
sources that we've been able to reconstruct this incredible
polyphonic singing tradition of the Georgian Orthodox
church after the fall of the Soviet Union and
suppression subsided. [ Singing ] In Georgian traditional
culture after the service, there needs to be the feast. Here, the guys are preparing
some shish kabobs on the fire and sharing some
stories together, and, of course, some folk songs. Folk songs accompany all walks
of life in Georgian culture from entertainment to love
songs to travel songs. Here, they'll sing three songs. The first is from
[foreign phrase] in the Mingrelian language. And it's about a matchmaker
bringing together a couple. And the second song
is a travel song, whence during this pandemic
times when we can't travel, the guys really wanted
to choose this and send this to our listeners. This is [foreign phrase]. It's a horseback riding song. And the third is a love
song from Eastern Georgia and features ornaments all
singing in the upper two voices. And we know that everyone
will enjoy this one as well. [ Singing ] [ Foreign Language Spoken ] [ Singing ] [ Foreign Language Spoken ] Now, Saba is explaining
to me the repertory that the quartet plans to
sing at the supra feast. And this is the genre of
urban songs or city songs that were composed in
the late 19th century, early 20th century, influenced
by the influx of Italian music, especially Neapolitan art songs. So, in this repertory, you may
hear Italian style harmony mixed with the Georgian pathos
and the Georgian excellence in singing quality. The first song is about Tbilisi,
the capital city of Georgia. And Georgians love for
their capital city. And the second song was composed
by John Sukafedsey [phonetic], a famous composer
in the 20th century. It's more nostalgic in
its meaning and pathos. It's talking about and
asking why love was lost. The third song is a
love song, of course. How else could we
finish the evening? So, with these three songs, we hope to show you the
popular music of Georgia today. It's both traditional,
featuring Georgian polyphonic singing styles. But it's also modern and is
sometimes performed with piano or guitar or accordion. In our case, the Ranina Quartet
will be performing with guitar. We know you will
enjoy this segment. And thank you so much for
being with us this evening. [ Singing ] [ Foreign Language Spoken ] This is the supra tradition where when Georgians
gather together and share wine together, they
want to toast to the themes that matter to them most. And this team we toasted to
Georgia women, which has come through many generations
from the ancestors, father to son, mother
to daughter. And today we feel like we're
a part of that tradition, and we're passing it onto
our children and anticipate that this Georgian
polyphony will go on for many generations further. Cheers to you. May you have many years. [ Singing ] [ Foreign Language Spoken ] Blessings. And may we have many years. [ Foreign phrase ] It's a Georgian polyphony. [ Singing ] Thank you for listening today. Please check out the American
Folklife Center's website where you can find lots of
amazing sound recordings online to explore;
www.loc.gov/folklife. [ Singing ] [ Foreign Language Spoken ]
