During a radio interview, Kenzhebek Kumysbekov was asked about his work for orchestra. Songs and art songs formed one large part of his output; another comprised his many poems for the Kurmangazy and Otyrar Sazy orchestras. In reply, the composer observed that Kazakhstan already had composers of operas and symphonies. He saw his own task in developing the kui inherited from earlier generations.
His answer survives in the radio programme Өнегелі өнер жолы. Kumysbekov explained why he kept returning to the same genre: a musical poem could express a person’s inner thought. He entrusted a large folk-instrument orchestra with stories of historical figures, his native land and his time. Behind this choice lay a long journey, from the dombra in a player’s hands to the score before an orchestra.
The Kui Heard from His Elders
A kui is a Kazakh instrumental piece whose music can tell of an event, convey a character or unfold a meditation. In the same interview, Kumysbekov described song and kui as two great inheritances, passed from generation to generation, from teacher to pupil.
He named two nineteenth-century masters. For him, Kurmangazy represented the richness of tokpe, a dombra tradition with vigorous wrist-driven strokes. Tattimbet embodied shertpe: delicate plucking, lyrical reflection and attention to a person’s inner life. Kumysbekov spoke of this music as an ongoing endeavour. Each generation received it and developed it further.
The musicologist E. K. Sapiyev explains the affinity between kui and poem through their ability to concentrate on a single image or mood. In his study, he associates the poem with tolghau, or reflection. This understanding of the genre accords with Kumysbekov’s account of his own work: music should gather a thought and give it a complete expression.
The School of the Orchestra
Before writing for a large ensemble, Kumysbekov had sat among its players. In his radio interview, he spoke of ten years of work in the Kurmangazy Orchestra. The Kazakh folk-instrument orchestra gave him daily practice: he played the dombra and arranged music by Russian and Western European composers for the ensemble.
His first compositions grew out of this work. Kumysbekov showed an art song setting Abai’s poetry to Mukan Tulebayev, a composer of the older generation. As he recalled, Tulebayev recognised the young composer’s gift for melody and advised him to obtain a professional education. Kumysbekov entered the conservatory again, this time to study composition.
He studied with Yevgeny Brusilovsky for seven years: two preparatory years and five on the main course. In the interview he stressed that even this period could not encompass everything a musician needed to know. Brusilovsky’s lessons and advice remained the foundation of his profession.
Sapiyev dates Kumysbekov’s first venture into the poem, a piece for cello and piano, to his student years. Later, the composer took these explorations into the folk-instrument orchestra. His training in European composition gave him the means to develop his material; the kui retained its place in his musical thinking.
A Thought Takes a Name
In the radio conversation, Kumysbekov named al-Farabi, Korkyt and Shokan Ualikhanov. A philosopher, a legendary kui master and a scholar-traveller became the subjects of orchestral music. The poem offered a way to explore their inner lives.
In Kerbezim, the radio account follows Shokan through three scenes: youth and the journey to Kashgaria, a ball in St Petersburg, and a luminous closing image of the scholar. Meanwhile, Farabi Sazy, in Sapiyev’s analysis, preserves the structure of the original dombra kui in its orchestral form. The two titles embody different ways of joining an inheritance to a new form.
In the television programme Creative Portrait, Kumysbekov again described the poem as a philosophical work and spoke of writing for the Kurmangazy and Otyrar Sazy orchestras. Both ensembles performed on Kazakh folk instruments. To them he entrusted his extended musical thoughts.
Three kinds of experience converged in his orchestral poems: memories of the kuis heard from his elders, years of orchestral playing and Brusilovsky’s training in composition. In this genre, one person’s inner thought acquired the many voices of an entire ensemble.