Aizuri Quartet - Earthdrawn Skies (2023)

Earthdrawn Skies explores deep connections between humankind and the natural world through the distinct lenses of four composers forging personal relationships with the soil and the stars. These works by Hildegard von Bingen, Eleanor Alberga, Komitas Vardapet and Jean Sibelius are rooted in a sense of tradition and connection to the land, even as the composers seek something beyond their reach: an understanding of God, the physics of the cosmos, homeland, happiness.

For Hildegard von Bingen, her relationship to the natural world is part of a religious mysticism. For Eleanor Alberga, it manifests itself through scientific exploration—the vibrant energy of her music reflecting her curiosity for and awe of natural processes that have been ongoing for millennia. The Armenian Folk Songs of Komitas are a window into the powerful and resilient connection between Armenians and their land, both the soil that peasants till and the homeland of which the diaspora dreams. Sibelius’s Voces Intimae, written during a period of psychological crisis and isolation in his rural home Ainola as he tried to escape the alcoholism that plagued him in Helsinki, reflects a shift from the grand optimistic expression of Finnish nationalism that dominated his youth to something more dark and personal. And yet the quartet concludes with a buoyant and virtuosic finale, a suggestion of folk fiddling that seems to be pulled straight out of the Finnish countryside.

The music on this album draws from the earth as it reaches upward and outward. These composers share an impulse to understand the sky, the heavens, the larger things in life. This is music we have kept returning to as a quartet, as it speaks to us in deeply personal ways. We cherish playing this music together, and we hope it resonates as much with you as it does with us.