After the Grammy-nominated chamber music album ‘leggiero, pesante’, a recording of major compositions for piano and orchestra by the man Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Pärt have both called “one of the greatest composers of our time.” He is certainly one of the most original: Valentin Silvestrov’s uniquely poetic and dreamlike music is played here with uncanny sensitivity and luminosity by Alexei Lubimov, with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies.
Valentin Silvestrov: Metamusik / Postludium
Alexei Lubimov, Radio Symphonieorchester Wien, Dennis Russell Davies
- 1Metamusik - Symphony for piano and orchestra (1992)
47:45 - 2Postludium - Symphonic poem for piano and orchestra (1984)
19:53
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Empfehlung
Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov's music has been recorded by high-profile labels... With the best production values of all, ECM has launched into its own Silvestrov series, following up a fine chamber-music set from last year with this even better disc pairing two piano concertante works, "Metamusik" and "Postludium." Shimmering like the heat haze off some celestial highway, these pieces bend in and out of aural focus, as edgy, forward-minded ideas mix with nostalgic touches of great beauty. One of Silvestrov's prime champions, pianist Alexei Lubimov speaks his language fluently. Born in 1937, the composer fully deserves this latter-day renaissance, and ECM's gorgeous presentation underlines its dedication to his cause.
Bradley Bambarger, Billboard Magazine
Whether or not you respond to Silvestrov, there is no doubting the qualities of imagination and the richness of invention that it possesses. ... The scoring, particularly in the bass end of the spectrum, is wonderfully rich and the heavy, dark and oppressive textures are at times almost suffocating. The post-Scriabinesque moments are offset by the occasional dreamlike ... hints of Mahlerian warmth. This is strong stuff, an undeniably powerful vision to which listeners will react strongly. As with any composer of vision, Silvestrov creates a world that is distinctively his own, whether or not you wish to enter and surrender to its magic... The Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies provides expert and authoritative playing and there is superb recorded sound. I do urge readers to investigate this.
Robert Layton, International Record Review
Der Ukrainer Silvestrov ist einer jener sowjetischen (und nachsowjetischen) Komponisten, die aus der empfundenen Enge des sozialistischen Realismus heraus ganz neue Zugänge zu Spiritualismus, zum Geheimnis schöpferischen Daseins, entwickelten. Ganz aus diesem Geist heraus entstand 1984 das eruptive und letztlich sublim verschwebende "Postludium", dem mit der "Metamusik" von 1992 ein fast 50-minütiger Koloss, gewissermaßen als gewaltige und gewaltsame Unersättlichkeit des Loslassens, folgte. Wunderbar gespielt!
Reinhard Schulz, Neue Musikzeitung
Silvestrov übernimmt mit den Titeln zwei Begriffe, die er auch sonst benutzt, um den Stil seiner jüngeren Werke zu beschreiben, denen ja mit "normalen" Hörerwartungen nicht mehr beizukommen ist: Ihre unendlich langsamen Abläufe, ihre weiten, Dur-Terzen durchaus nicht verschmähenden Klangflächen, in denen melodische Bruchstücke unversehens kommen und gehen, wirken wie eine meditative Musik nach der Musik, wie nachklingende Erinnerungen. "Metamusik" und "Postludium" projizieren diese an sich intime kompositorische Grundidee ins Große, ja Riesenhafte, wobei das Klavier nicht im traditionellen Sinn solistisch hervortritt und unter nahezu völligem Verzicht auf akkordische Zusammenklänge eingesetzt ist; sein Klang bildet nur noch die wichtigste Farbe in der Orchesterpalette. Die Darstellung beider Werke, von denen die dreiviertelstündige "Metamusik" eine CD-Premiere ist, lässt keine Wünsche offen.
Ingo Harden, Fono Forum
Wie bei den amerikanischen Minimalisten haben sich auch bei den osteuropäischen Postmodernen im Laufe der Zeit gewaltige Unterschiede aufgetan. Dass Silvestrov in den Siebzigern zu einem unverwechselbaren Personalstil gefunden hat, der in seiner vielschichtig schillernden Komplexität und bei fast besessen zu nennender Einkreisung und Durchleuchtung einiger weniger musikalischer Parameter - etwa Melos, Reprise, Dacapo - eher mit Messiaen als mit Pärt in einen Topf zu werfen wäre, ist evident. ... "Metamusik" hebt, ähnlich wie "Postludium", mit einer Eröffnungsfanfare des Orchesters an, die wie das Wegziehen eines Vorhanges wirkt, nachbebend und sich auflösend in labyrinthisch verzweigte Schatten und Echos aus variierten Skalenpartikeln, Triolenfloskeln, Dreiklangsfiguren, Arpeggien, Tremolos, Zitaten und Selbstzitaten. ... Auch das Klavier, das solistisch hinzutritt, webt organisch seine Melismen in den durch Wiederholung und exzessive Rubati in haptische Körperlichkeit versetzten Orchesterklang - dergestalt, dass das Stück, anschwellend, abschwellend, lebendig zu atmen scheint wie ein großes, schönes, fremdartiges Tier, an das man sich gleichwohl ganz genau zu erinnern meint aus einem früheren Leben. Diese Erinnerungsarbeit der Sinne ist es, die Silvestrovs Musik und Lubimovs Klavierspiel gleichermaßen auszeichnet. Dennis Russell Davies und das RSO Wien sind beiden kongeniale Partner.
Eleonore Büning, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“It is very important for a composition to begin with an impulse. No matter whether powerful or gentle, it should be the result of a pre-existent energy that sets the composition in motion. Then the whole can unfold step by step.” – Valentin Silvestrov
In an interview with the New Yorker, Arvo Pärt recently described Valentin Silvestrov as “one of the greatest composers of our time”. These premiere recordings of “Metamusik” and “Postludium” made with Valentin Silvestrov’s participation, underline Pärt’s conviction, and emphasize the uniqueness of the Ukrainian composer’s vision. They also serve to round out a portrait of the composer first sketched with 2001’s Grammy-nominated chamber music album “leggiero, pesante”; the focus here is on “symphonic music”, yet the term seems inadequate for Silvestrov’s delicately -realized compositions - played with extraordinary restraint and fluidity by Alexei Lubimov with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies.
Lubimov: “Valentin Silvestrov has created a cosmos unlike any other, with its own themes, characters and, above all, a very personal manner of thought, utterance and writing. A cosmos that has remained a unified whole, despite a marked stylistic shift - from avant-garde to the so-called “metaphorical style” – since the beginning of the Seventies. All of his works are like links in a chain that I can recognise, literally, with my fingers. Precisely notated improvisation inspired by illumination in a wakeful state or a dream: that is how I would describe the source of his artistic style. Silvestrov has truly mastered the art of so notating his visions that the interpreter can understand and translate them. But as simple and transparent as it seems (there is ‘little’ in the lines, but so very much between them), his music is a great challenge. It is the tiny details that demand such meticulous work from the interpreter. And recognising a free flow of music behind so much method is exceedingly difficult. … While recording the coda of ‘Metamusik’, I realised I was neither counting the values of notes and rests nor attempting to adhere to the articulation marks. I was playing absolutely intuitively, as if I could see the sounds and harmonies before me. The works on this CD can be understood as existential metaphors, parables about the inner life of music that opens a window on other worlds and eras. Outwardly, both ‘Postludium’ and ‘Metamusik’ are scored as piano concertos. But they have little to do with the genre, bearing more of a family resemblance to Scriabin’s ‘Prometheus’ or Stravinsky’s ‘Movements’. Piano and orchestra do not compete, they complement each other and more: the orchestra often sounds like an expansion of the sonorities of the piano voice.“
In the CD booklet, Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich observes that “both ‘Postludium’ and ‘Metamusik’ are symphonic works with a solo part tailored specifically to the subtle magic of the pianist Alexei Lubimov. Though the piano writing is monophonic throughout, there is no singing line, but swirling cascading textures. This enables the piano to articulate itself as an individual, subjective voice, but also as the medium of a sort of alienation, as if someone were speaking, not directly, but in an aside and as if in a dream. Perhaps the unique quality of the diction derives from the communicating subject being shown at the eternal moment of self-renunciation. More than ever, the orchestral sonorities are neither counterpart nor partner in dialogue, but complement, enveloping and enfolding the pianistic monologue, giving spatial dimension to the soliloquy.”
“Metamusik” was commissioned from Valentin Silvestrov for the 14th Berlin Biennale of Music in 1993. It is dedicated to Alexei Lubimov and represents an important programmatic milestone along the composer’s artistic path. “Postludium”, written almost a decade earlier and dedicated to its first interpreter Virko Baley, can be considered a prototype for “Metamusik” in terms of its scoring, although it is, as Tatjana Frumkis has noted, “different in scale and structural approach, more in the mould of the Romantic concertos of Liszt, Schumann or Tchaikovsky.”
In an interview with the New Yorker, Arvo Pärt recently described Valentin Silvestrov as “one of the greatest composers of our time”. These premiere recordings of “Metamusik” and “Postludium” made with Valentin Silvestrov’s participation, underline Pärt’s conviction, and emphasize the uniqueness of the Ukrainian composer’s vision. They also serve to round out a portrait of the composer first sketched with 2001’s Grammy-nominated chamber music album “leggiero, pesante”; the focus here is on “symphonic music”, yet the term seems inadequate for Silvestrov’s delicately -realized compositions - played with extraordinary restraint and fluidity by Alexei Lubimov with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies.
Lubimov: “Valentin Silvestrov has created a cosmos unlike any other, with its own themes, characters and, above all, a very personal manner of thought, utterance and writing. A cosmos that has remained a unified whole, despite a marked stylistic shift - from avant-garde to the so-called “metaphorical style” – since the beginning of the Seventies. All of his works are like links in a chain that I can recognise, literally, with my fingers. Precisely notated improvisation inspired by illumination in a wakeful state or a dream: that is how I would describe the source of his artistic style. Silvestrov has truly mastered the art of so notating his visions that the interpreter can understand and translate them. But as simple and transparent as it seems (there is ‘little’ in the lines, but so very much between them), his music is a great challenge. It is the tiny details that demand such meticulous work from the interpreter. And recognising a free flow of music behind so much method is exceedingly difficult. … While recording the coda of ‘Metamusik’, I realised I was neither counting the values of notes and rests nor attempting to adhere to the articulation marks. I was playing absolutely intuitively, as if I could see the sounds and harmonies before me. The works on this CD can be understood as existential metaphors, parables about the inner life of music that opens a window on other worlds and eras. Outwardly, both ‘Postludium’ and ‘Metamusik’ are scored as piano concertos. But they have little to do with the genre, bearing more of a family resemblance to Scriabin’s ‘Prometheus’ or Stravinsky’s ‘Movements’. Piano and orchestra do not compete, they complement each other and more: the orchestra often sounds like an expansion of the sonorities of the piano voice.“
In the CD booklet, Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich observes that “both ‘Postludium’ and ‘Metamusik’ are symphonic works with a solo part tailored specifically to the subtle magic of the pianist Alexei Lubimov. Though the piano writing is monophonic throughout, there is no singing line, but swirling cascading textures. This enables the piano to articulate itself as an individual, subjective voice, but also as the medium of a sort of alienation, as if someone were speaking, not directly, but in an aside and as if in a dream. Perhaps the unique quality of the diction derives from the communicating subject being shown at the eternal moment of self-renunciation. More than ever, the orchestral sonorities are neither counterpart nor partner in dialogue, but complement, enveloping and enfolding the pianistic monologue, giving spatial dimension to the soliloquy.”
“Metamusik” was commissioned from Valentin Silvestrov for the 14th Berlin Biennale of Music in 1993. It is dedicated to Alexei Lubimov and represents an important programmatic milestone along the composer’s artistic path. “Postludium”, written almost a decade earlier and dedicated to its first interpreter Virko Baley, can be considered a prototype for “Metamusik” in terms of its scoring, although it is, as Tatjana Frumkis has noted, “different in scale and structural approach, more in the mould of the Romantic concertos of Liszt, Schumann or Tchaikovsky.”
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