A Closer Listen
Some people collect old family photographs to preserve their childhood memories; since he was sixteen, Richard Hronský has been collecting little snippets of sound. These recordings are folded into Pohreb (A Funeral), recalling life in his grandparents’ house and now providing an anchor for the memory. Although intensely personal, Pohreb is also extremely relatable, as listeners around the world may also be able to hear echoes of their own loved ones in these thoughtful compositions. While not explicitly stated, it seems that the grandparents have passed away, and that the artist is mourning not only a couple, but a house, a time and a way of life.
The album begins with the sounds of a brook and a train, each one a metaphor for the passage of time. Hronský invites the listener to travel with him to an old Slovak home and the village surrounding it. Ambience dissolves into drone, the river flows into the sea and a small orchestra offers an early requiem. Soon the fujara – a traditional three-holed Slovak flute – makes an appearance, fastening the album to geography and tradition. Then there is static, “the grandfather’s radio playing in the garage,” and one remembers that sometimes the dead speak through such signals. As disjointed words emerge, the greater sonic impact is that of the birds, perhaps mourning their own dead, their ancestors the birds that once sang to Hronský’s family.
“I bid you farewell (from the world)” is the first specific reference to mourning; there will be more. And yet, despite its title, the album feels more like life than death. An airplane passes by overhead; young Richard messes with his tape recorder, catching the sound of his own clicking as well as that of a nearby choir, whether in church or on a radio station. When Adela Mede (Ne Lépj a Virágra) starts to sing on “Topole,” the effect is incandescent, erasing the boundaries between heaven and earth. The spell lasts through “Transfiguration,” which bears its own spiritual associations. By “In memorium,” all is laid bare, Štefan Bobek’s organ notes wafting through the town, calling any who remain to remember and to witness. Now it sounds like a funeral. But the tape click throws us off again; it is only a memory. In like fashion, the closing folk song vibrates through the ages like the ghost of Christmas past, etched in the collective unconscious.
“For me, the sound is more powerful than the photograph,” writes Hronský. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but in the end, an image is confining, while a sound is liberating. We might not picture what Hronský pictures as he plays these recordings, but we connect with the feelings they conjure. (Richard Allen)
Mon Aug 25 00:01:20 GMT 2025