Sparrow Oratorium/Four Seasons
Sparrow Oratorium "Four Seasons" is an album by Sergey Kuryokhin released in 1993 by the Norwegian label Sparrow International AS. It was recorded at the M&M Studio in St. Petersburg, Russia between 1992 and 1993. A Russian reissue of the album was released by the label Pop-Mechanika in 2000.
Creation
The project was inspired by Kuryokhin's acquaintance with Norwegian ecologist and bird enthusiast Jon Melbye, who is said to have told the composer about importance of sparrows in urban environments as a predictor of its ecological condition. Kuryokhin began closely studying and counting St. Petersburg sparrows and found that these birds were in fact leaving the city. According to Kuryokhin biographer Aleksandr Kušnir, these observations, alongside readings of "Principles of Phonology” by Russian linguist Nikolai Trubetskoy inspired the idea of a fictional "sparrow language". The vocals on the album are thus sung in a made-up "sparrow" language, mixing Russian, Latin and Ukrainian phonemes.The 1st track on the album, "Winter", is a remaster of "Hare Krishna, Donna Anna" off Kuryokhin's 1992 release, The Rich's Opera.