Rahilia Hasanova

for French horn and marimba

ca. 9'02"

Click here to view the score.

Rahilia Hasanova

for clarinet in Bb, violin, and piano

ca. 8'56"

Pulse represents the birth of the rhythmical patterns through variations of beats and accents. The mixture of melodic intonations, timbral colors, and gradually growing dynamical intensification creates entirely the pulse of this extraordinary composition.

Performers:

Gleb Kanasevich, clarinet

Airi Yoshioka, violin

Ina Mirtcheva, piano

Click here to view the score.

Click here to listen to a recording of this piece.

Rahilia Hasanova

for guitar quartet

ca. 5'34"

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Rahilia Hasanova

for septet

ca. 10'45"

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Rahilia Hasanova

for clarinet quartet and percussion

ca. 7'44"

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Rahilia Hasanova

for violin and piano

ca. 14'00"

Impulse is the first composition of the trilogy. Two others are Pulse (2012 for violin, clarinet, and piano) and Pulseless (2017 for violin, cello, and piano). Nature, starts everything from full ideas and logical impulses that have certain parameters for certain creations. A single impulse brings energy for upcoming pulsations. Timing for pulsations depends on how forceful the impulse is. All parameters of this process are related to the first impulse, that is the creative energy of its life. The force of this energy creates and emits all upcoming pulsations and after all gradually fading, freezes in the pulseless condition and silence. All these actions are coded insde of the first impulse.

The recording I have used for this video was made during the rehearsal in Tbilisi. The performers were Adila Javadzade, piano and Nino Shamugia, violin. Maybe it is far from an ideal recording but it is very valuable for me because performers captured the spirit and emotional vibrations of Impulse. I was amazed by their artistic approach. You may listen to another version of the concert premier of Impulse on my YouTube playlist collections. The Baku premier performance was featured by Adila Javadzade, piano and Elina Aliyeva, violin.

Click here to view the score.

Click here to listen to the recording.

Rahilia Hasanova

for two violins

ca. 7'33"

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Rahilia Hasanova

for soprano and violin

ca. 22'00"

On thin Air is a little drama for soprano and violin. I believe that many of us might have experienced something that is unusually strange or unexplainably unreal… Just one time in your life you might feel something that you never felt before or after… At such a moment you understand that everything that created around the holographic existence is bigger and deeper than you would be able to observe and absorb. At such a fleeting instant you are surrounded by the wonder… At such an astonishing flash your the only sensation is the admiration!

If you are endlessly high...

Suspended on thin air...

You contemplate the stars,

You can't reach Earth...

You try to understand what are you doing here?

If your breath is too short and almost frozen

You feel you're helpless at such position,

You know you're hopeless at such condition...

You hear your inner wordless scream!

If you are endlessly high...

If you can smell and taste the air...

You see gold sparkles through indescribable blue color

Your heart is not inside of you...

Your brain is not responding to you...

Your blood is desperately cold

Bombarding your brain by isotopes of thoughts,

Trying to stop all these and comprehend...

Are you alive?

If you are endlessly high...

Nothing above, beneath, and all around...

Nothing is up...Nothing is down...

And you try to connect your toes and ground

Willing to calm your tremor...

Am I flying or am I motionless?

Am I sensing margis between my dream and death?

No... No... it can't be..

No... No... No... No... your feelings are so real...

If you are endlessly high suspended on thin air

You have to feel a little fear and unexpected joy...

 - Rahilia Hasanova

On Thin Air was premiered at Linnehan concert hall of the University of Maryland Baltimore County on October 20, 2023 by Duo Della Luna.

Susan Botti, soprano

Airi Yoshioka, violin

Recording engineer, Alan Wonneberger

Click here to view the score.

Click here to listen to the recording.

Rahilia Hasanova

for violoncello and piano

ca. 5'39" 

Gaval Dash means "drumming stone." The Gaval dash is a huge, rounded piece of the stone that is the unique creation of nature. It produces sounds and overtones when you drum or touch it with any other piece of stone. The Gaval dash is in Gobustan - a place near Baku, Azerbaijan. Here you can meditate and contemplate strangely-shaped rocks and hills, murals with pictographic calendars and "dancing people" images, mud volcanic geysers touching and feeling an inner choir of the Gaval dash. This place is full of mystery. Nobody knows who could lift such a heavy but sensitive "drum" on top of the cone-shaped rock. Perhaps the Gaval dash consists of iron or some other chemical elements. It could be an explanation for its extraordinary timbre. No doubt, it was used for ritualistic dances of ancient people who lived here many centuries B.C.

This piece was recorded at a concert that took place at the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2018, performed by Dorotea Racz, cello and Hui-Chuan Chen, piano.

Click here to view the score.

Click here to listen to the recording.

Rahilia Hasanova

for double bass and piano

ca. 15'00"

Scientists considered extinct volcanoes as cold, dead volcanoes because centuries beneath them there is no underground activity. They would be ones that nobody expects to ever erupt again. But new research turned all these definitions upside-down: extinct volcanoes are waking up. Getting hotter, they finally would be ready to burst out. There have already been a number of eruptions from extinct volcanoes. Yes, volcanoes thought to be dead have erupted or have visible signs of geological changes all around the world: Yellowstone, Yosemite, Campi Flegrei, Changbaishan, Krakatoa, Popokatepetl, Eyjafjallajokull... Extinct volcanoes break silence. Maybe the Earth has something to tell us?

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Rahilia Hasanova

for piano quintet

ca. 14'05"

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Rahilia Hasanova

for string quartet

ca. 4'30"

Pastorale is the reminiscence of my journey to a small mountain village. Far from city noises I spent wonderful times there among strangely-shaped green stone blocks, wildflowers, and making musical sounds waterfalls. Little houses were built close to the gulch where a light morning breeze created songs, each time new and unrepeatable. Listening to all-embracing breath of nature, smelling a perfume of herbs and fresh air, looking to the sourrounded horizon I was speechless and truly fascinated. Pastorale is my musical impression of my feelings.

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Rahilia Hasanova

for tenor, bass, and string quartet

ca. 20'39"

Dervish is the representation of the global understanding of how things work and interact in the universe: All is connected to everything and everything is connected to all.

Dervish was recorded at my portrait concert by Koln Deutschlandradio in 2004 by the Minguet Quartet, with vocalists:

Ulrich Isfort, violin I

Annette Reisinger, violin II

Irene Schwalb, viola

Matthias Diener, violoncello

Vocalists:

Kyu-Cheul Lee, tenor

David Hieronimi, bass

Click here to view the score.

Click here to listen to the recording.

Rahilia Hasanova

for 3 percussionists

ca. 7'34"

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Rahilia Hasanova

for piano, trumpet, percussion and string orchestra

ca. 12'09"

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Rahilia Hasanova

for two pianos and percussion

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Rahilia Hasanova

for horn in F, Bb trumpet, tenor trombone

ca. 5'16"

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Rahilia Hasanova

for percussion ensemble and tambura

ca. 20'00"

The translation of Ayin in Azerbaijani is "rite, or ritual."

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Eleanor Hovda

for flute, clarinet in Bb, violin, viola, violoncello, piano, and percussion

ca. 14'42"

For the Boston Musica Viva, Richard Pittman, music director

Click here to view the score.

Click here to view revised performance notes.

Click here to view clarinet fingerings by E. Michael Richards, from The Clarinet of the Twenty-First Century, 2nd ed.

Click here to hear a recording by the Prism Players on the Eleanor Hovda Collection CD on Spotify.

Eleanor Hovda

for flute, oboe, clarinet in Bb, percussion, piano, and string quartet

ca. 12'51"

Commissioned by the Cuicani Orchestra Project, with support from the US/Mexico Fund for Culture

Dedicated to the memory of Manuel Enriquez

I use the title Leaning Into and Away because the piece grew out of many thoughts about and experiences dancing and making music for dancers. I found myself focussing particularly on the energies of running on the ground and leaping into space, and the flow of energy involved in any physical moves from balance to suspension. I also wanted to work with the idea of excavating sounds from the bone and sinew of piano, wind, string, and percussion instruments – as dancers draw energy from deep inside their bodies.  

Click here to view the score.

Click here to view the performance notes.

Click here to hear a recording by the Prism Players on Spotify.