Valentin Silvestrov

Valentin Silvestrov: leggiero, pesante (ECM New Series 1776)

| Tyran Grillo

Valentin Silvestrov
leggiero, pesante

Valentin Silvestrov piano
Anja Lechner cello
Silke Avenhaus piano
Simon Fordham violin
Maacha Deubner soprano
Rosamunde Quartett
Recorded January 2001, Festeburgkirche, Frankfurt am Main
Engineer: Markus Heiland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

With leggiero, pesante ECM devoted its first entire disc to the work of Valentin Silvestrov, inaugurating an ongoing series through which the label has been documenting a quiet musical path that had, until then, led the composer to great acclaim hardly anywhere beyond his native Ukraine. As one who often works in larger forces, Silvestrov was, I think, wisely introduced to listeners through this program of chamber pieces. To be sure, his statements are no less expansive here, but one sees more clearly in the capillary motifs that so fascinate him, and us, with their inner life.

If the opening Sonata for cello and piano (1983) is a mirror, than in it we catch only fleeting glimpses of faces that, through the magic of performance, are slowed like a film reel until their pathos becomes clear. Intense dynamic contrasts ensure that silences are as full as the notes that cradle them. Pianist Silke Avenhaus and cellist Anja Lechner offer a painstaking reading of this rather difficult piece, which challenges with its need for emotional over technical virtuosity.

If the String Quartet No. 1 (1974) is a breath, then each instrument is a sheltering lung. The first violin stretches its capacity, exhaling a jagged agenda against the linear regularity of the trio from which it is birthed. As these become increasingly convinced of its mission, they join the violin in song, only to fall back into the folds of their complacency, leaving the violin to weep for its lost cause. The Rosamunde Quartett’s performance is transparent and honest and ensures that every stage of this mournful journey is illuminated by salvation.

If the Three Postludes (1981/82) are hands, then each grabs the wrist of the other in an unbreakable triangle. Postludium No. 1 is a swan song for Shostakovich and uses the composer’s DSCH cryptogram to satoric effect. Soprano Maacha Deubner reprises the profundity she brought to Kancheli’s Exil, loosing her angelic rain through a gossamer fabric woven of violin and piano. Violinist Simon Fordham makes of Postludium No. 2 an enigmatic complement, while Avenhaus and Silke return for the delicate charm of Postludium No. 3, honing a brightening edge in an otherwise murky recital.

The composer himself takes up the piano for his closing Hymn 2001, dropping highs like spores into the instrument’s freshly tilled lows, where they are silently absorbed to begin the cycle anew.

As the album’s title makes abundantly clear, Silvestrov’s music feels light, but in being so is immeasurably heavy. Just when it seems on the verge of fading like a mist in morning light, it curls back from the binds that loop it firmly around our attentions. It is not that these binds are particularly restrictive, only that the music is so much at peace in their gentle capture that its shoes remain unworn.

Valentin Silvestrov: Sacred Works (ECM New Series 2117)

| Tyran Grillo

Valentin Silvestrov
Sacred Works

Kiev Chamber Choir
Mykola Hobdych conductor
Recorded 2006 and 2007, Cathedral Of The Dormition, Pechersk Lavra, Kiev
Engineer: Andrij Mokrytskij

ECM’s New Series has a love for living composers, of which Valentin Silvestrov is a personal favorite. While already highly regarded in the former Soviet Union, Silvestrov has seen a revival of sorts through his substantial representation on the label. This selection of choral music showcases a recent turn in the Ukrainian’s compositional path, written as it was at the urgent behest of conductor Mykola Hobdych. Easily worthy of a place alongside Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil, these pieces abound with moments of aching profundity.

The album opens like a flower, shedding a petal with every new voice that enters. A bass intones, navigating the complex shape circumscribed by the reverberant space, as the choir responds to the soloist’s articulations. The latter sings in a subdued manner, stripping the basso profundo aesthetic down to its core, much in the spirit of Silvestrov’s Silent Songs. The choir lifts, leaving our entire landscape changed: season, time of day, climate—all of it falls away for just a few moments before we sink back down into the density of our own being. Buoyant women’s voices spiral like galaxies; an ambrosial tenor solo gives way to broader considerations, tightening like knotwork before being wrapped in the gauze of redemption; an alto transcends the hush of the choir, carrying with it the existential kindling that sparks its emotive nature.

Silvestrov’s music exists in a state of perpetual ascent, and perhaps nowhere more so than here. The choir acts as one organism, lending the frequent solos a recitational air. These are not unlike Christ’s words in red in a modern Bible: somehow distinct from their textual periphery while also constitutive of it. After listening to this album it’s difficult to recall the gaps between pieces, flowing as they do into an extended statement. By the same token, each is its own icon suspended, safe among the clutter of our anxieties. Bid to choose, I would single out “Christmas Song,” “Bless O Lord,” “The Creed,” and the two deconstructions of the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria (especially the first, with its haunting whispers) as particularly moving examples of Silvestrov’s craft. The Kiev Chamber Choir sings with passionate restraint and intuition, its dynamics fluid and under beautiful control. At moments the singers practically break at the seams, inhaling and exhaling the space of their recording venue, where every nuance of breath is amplified in its union with others.

Those wanting to warm up to Silvestrov’s “metamusical” style may adjust more easily to these melodically rich miniatures. Yet there is still so much alluded to here that never reaches fruition. Rather than being a distraction, however, this technique adds depth and honesty. This is music of the night, streaked as if with time-lapsed stars, a mise-en-abyme of divine reflection.

Those who like what they hear may also want to check out the enchanting Twenty-Seven Choruses by Bartók, of which the original Hungaroton Classic recording is still the benchmark.