Just as the Golden Age of Cinema is synonymous with high production values and narrative clarity, the same can be said for the live recording of The Sounds of Eternity (Dedicated to World Peace) by Farkhad Khudyev as he commands the University of Texas Symphony Orchestra. There’s a filmic, arcane grace to the composition, which draws you away from the trappings, gloss and excess of modernity towards the strife, beauty, loss and triumph our lineages have suffered through to arrive here, where The Sounds of Eternity rings like something you’ve forgotten to remember, but has always been there.
It’s the ultimate antidote to existentialism; how could you possibly question the meaning of life as the symphonically filmic veracity of the score affirms existence and obscures the surface noise through the spatial command of orchestral instrumentation as it cries, caresses and kindles catharsis.
There’s a revolving tableau of emotions in the 25-minute duration, which allows each crescendo to feel more visceral than the last; it’s a call to something primal, spiritual, historically rooted. With mugham singer Alim Qasimov, naghara virtuoso Natig Shirinov, kamancha master Imamyar Hasanov, and dancer Laman Hendricks folded into the orchestral vision, Khudyev realises his long-held ambition of bringing Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the West into one rapturous space.
Born in Turkmenistan, of Azerbaijani origin, and later shaped in the United States, he channels that cultural breadth into a work devoted to peace and the ever-embracing power of love.
The Sounds of Eternity (Dedicated to World Peace) is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.
Review by Amelia Vandergast