The Lives of Works

Works pass through other hands, instruments and decades; alongside them are a close reading of the Nocturne and a theatre album from 1979.

A work lives beyond the year in which it was created. A score is entrusted to another musician; a dombra kui, a Kazakh instrumental piece, becomes an orchestral poem; the cello gives way to qobyz, the Kazakh bowed instrument, and oboe; a recorded piece enters a dance and returns to the stage forty years later. These stories show Kumysbekov’s music in motion.

Family photograph of a seated man holding a sheet of music — AI restoration of a family photograph with sheet music; the notation in the derivative is not a readable source. — Семейная библиотека; автор фотографии не установлен

Why the poem

In a radio conversation, Kumysbekov explained his choice: to carry the kui forward and express a person’s inner thought through a folk instrument orchestra. His answer connects years of performance with his training in composition — Why He Chose the Poem.

In the same radio programme, Kerbezim unfolds as a musical portrait of Shokan Ualikhanov. Youth, the journey to Kashgaria and a St Petersburg waltz become guides for listening — Shokan in Kerbezim.

Why He Chose the PoemTen years in an orchestra and seven with Yevgeny Brusilovsky prepared Kumysbekov to choose his own path: developing the kui and creating musical portraits of al-Farabi, Korkyt and Shokan Ualikhanov.Shokan in KerbezimYouth and Kashgaria, a St Petersburg waltz, a luminous finale: a radio programme reveals three scenes in Kumysbekov's kui-poem as a musical portrait of the scholar and traveller Shokan Ualikhanov.

A score as a charge

Kumysbekov gave Aitkali Zhaimov the score of Amanat. The musicians copied it out and began rehearsing, while Zhaimov understood the gesture as a request to perform the music and pass it on.

In 2017 and 2022, Amanat appeared in two anniversary programmes. The memory of the entrusted score remained beside those two later stages — the story of Amanat: A Score as a Charge.

With videoAmanat: A Score as a ChargeAitkali Zhaimov recalled receiving the score of Amanat; two separate concert programmes list the work among pieces performed in 2017 and 2022.

From dombra to orchestral writing

Kumysbekov first created the dombra kui Farabi Sazy, then arranged it for an orchestra of folk instruments. The musicologist Sapiyev follows the poem’s course from bas buyn, its opening register, to sagha, the climactic upper register of a kui.

In 2017, Farabi Sazy entered an anniversary programme. The dombra form and the orchestral poem make one path — Farabi Sazy: From Dombra to Orchestra.

Farabi Sazy: From Dombra to OrchestraThe work became an orchestral poem shaped by four formal zones of the dombra kui, a Kazakh instrumental piece; Sapiyev places it in the history of symphonic kui.

The voices of one Poem

In 1960, the original voices of Poem were cello and piano. The solo part then passed to violin, qobyz, oboe and double bass, with the piano remaining beside it.

Three Soviet records and performances by different ensembles lie between the original duet and its return in Pune on 25 March 2018. The sequence of these performance paths is told in The Life of One Poem.

The Life of One PoemFrom the cello in 1960 to qobyz, the Kazakh bowed instrument, oboe, double bass and Gautier Herrmann's recording in Pune.

From record to dance

In 1986, Bishi Qaiyn (The Dancing Birches) was recorded by the Otyrar Sazy State Folklore and Ethnographic Orchestra under Nurgisa Tlendiyev. In 1989 the choreographer Zaurbek Raibayev staged the work for the Saltanat dance ensemble.

In 2025 the piece returned to an Otyrar Sazy concert programme; in 2026 it appeared in publications by the Kurmangazy Orchestra. Record, dance, concert and digital release formed a forty-year life — When the Birches Became a Dance.

When the Birches Became a DanceFrom a 1986 recording and a Melodiya record to Zaurbek Raibayev's production, an Otyrar Sazy concert and a digital release in 2026.

Two shorter forms

Not every precise piece of material calls for a long article. Inkar Saduakasova examined the Nocturne across its 105 bars — from a two-bar introduction to a shortened reprise and an image of daybreak. The material remains an analytical note, Daybreak Instead of Night.

The other object is a double album of a production by the Kazakh Theatre for Young Audiences. The catalogue card names the year 1979, the theatre, the director Atakeldy Ismailov and Kumysbekov’s music — Music for the Tale of Aldar-Kose.

The stories diverge in time and form, but end with a human gesture — the score of Amanat entrusted to Zhaimov. He understood it as a charge to perform the music and pass it on.

Daybreak Instead of NightAcross 105 bars, the Nocturne moves from E-flat major through the unease of F minor to a shortened reprise and a ppp (pianississimo) marking — an instruction to play as softly as possible.Music for the Tale of Aldar-KoseIn 1979 Melodiya released the Kazakh Theatre for Young Audiences production Shyq Bermes Shyghybai and Aldar-Kose on two records, with music by Kenzhebek Kumysbekov.

Continue in the Reading Room