Nodar Mamisashvili's Passion as an example of mixing old and new elements in 20th-century Georgian sacred music

Authors

• Maka Virsaladze

Abstract

The contemporary Georgian composer Nodar Mamisashvili, as the author of the musical system of three-phase composition, the man who calculated the formula of the Georgian church bell alloys and their acoustic features, and who took a great interest in various branches of science and their synthesis, occupies a special place in Georgian musical space on account of his originality and versatility.

This paper deals with the transformation of the idea of passion in Nodar Mamisashvili’s choral composition Gancdani (“Passion”). I shall compare Mamisashvili’s work both with the European Passion and the Georgian analogue of the Passion, the so-called Shekhvetiliani (Holy Friday Hymn Book), though the paper is not targeted at a detailed discussion of the European and Georgian Passion per se.