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"For the exceptional music that combines contemporary classical with more popular influences. For the superb singing and disarming acting. For the extraordinary and funny way in which Daniil Charms' absurd poetry is staged and sung. For the fusion of ingredients that captivate both children and adults... The Singal jury nominated Charms by Walpurgis." From the jury report of the 1998 Signal Prize
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Starting point for Charms are a dozen children's poems by Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev (b. 1905), alias Daniil Kharms, who 'suddenly disappeared' in 1942 at the hands of the Stalinist regime.
Unfinished thoughts with very sudden, non-logical and often violent leaps of thought, absurd and sometimes black humour and the tension between truth, lies, reality and the imaginary are characteristic of Charms' style.
Commissioned by WALPURGIS, several poems by this underrated author were translated into Dutch for the first time. Composer Peter Vermeersch set them to music. The result is a dozen songs for soprano, accordion, clarinet and percussion strung together like rough, strange gems into a bizarre necklace that sits tightly around the neck.
Charms, the CD
Reviews
Charms has completely the spirit of Charms in it, in a nonsensical variety show, with equally nonsensical verses and stories, and is performed at an equally high musical level.
Tuur Devens, The Bond
In their sparse composition, clarinet and accordion, in conjunction with percussion , can display a huge variety of musical worlds. Vermeersch conjures a gypsy orchestra, makes a jazz band swing, sprinkles rock and roll or winks at Jewish klezmer music. (...) The whole performance has a wonderful pace, the scenes roll right out. You spend more than three quarters of an hour watching driven people who have a striking natural theatrical presence, while also demonstrating their virtuosity as musicians, singers or actors.
Frank Pauwels, The Gentenaar
a scintillating display, always bizarre, sometimes grotesque, even almost clownish.
Maarten Beirens, De Standaard
These pieces open the ears, by the way the instruments are used, by the architecture, by the unheard-of eclecticism, and by the whimsical yet tender feeling expressed.
Peter Vantygem, De Standaard
Wim Konink's superb percussion carries the atmosphere of this entire production, to which Philippe Thuriot's accordion and Tom Wouters' clarinet lend just that folkloric touch that suits Charms' Russian absurdities.
The Morning
