Valentin Silvestrov with recordings of his orchestral, chamber and vocal works – creations that stand as some of the most arresting and moving in contemporary music. This continues in Silvestrov’s 75th birthday year with Sacred Songs, the seventh album ECM has devoted wholly to the composer’s music; it collects sets of songs, refrains, psalms and prayers composed from 2006 to 2008 that reflect the composer’s late-blooming interest in writing for a cappella voices, which led previously to the ECM releases Requiem for Larissa and Sacred Works. Like the latter album, Sacred Songs features the utterly attuned, even otherworldly performances of Ukraine’s Kiev Chamber Choir under the direction of co-founder Mykola Hobdych, with the recordings made in the resounding air of St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, an ancient building recently reconstructed, the acoustic of which is almost a joint performer with the choir. The BBC description of Sacred Works just as easily fits the new Sacred Songs: “A ravishing collection of a cappella choral works by Silvestrov that perfectly illustrates his own description of his music as ‘a response to and an echo of what already exists’. It is the sheer beauty of sound that catches the ear (…) luminous and lyrical.”
Valentin Silvestrov: Sacred Songs
Kyiv Chamber Choir, Mykola Hobdych
Seit 2001 hat sich ECM mit großer Überzeugung für das Werk des ukrainischen Komponisten Valentin Silvestrov stark gemacht, durch Einspielungen seiner Arbeiten für Orchester, Kammer- und Vokalmusik – Schöpfungen, die zu den markantesten und bewegendsten in der zeitgenössischen Musik gehören. Dieses Engagement setzt sich im Jahr von Silvestrovs 75. Geburtstag mit “Sacred Songs” fort, dem siebten Album, das ECM komplett der Musik des Komponisten gewidmet hat. Es versammelt Sätze von geistlichen Liedern, Refrains, Psalmen und Gebeten, die in den Jahren von 2006 bis 2008 komponiert wurden und Silvestrovs zunehmendes Interesse am Schreiben für A-cappella-Gesänge reflektieren, welches zuvor auch schon zu den ECM-Veröffentlichungen „Requiem for Larissa“ und „Sacred Works“ geführt hatte. Wie das letztgenannte Album enthält auch „Sacred Songs” vollendet abgestimmte, geradezu entrückte Darbietungen des Kammerchors von Kiew unter der Leitung seines Mitgründers Mykola Hobdych. Die Aufnahmen entstanden im vor einigen Jahren wieder aufgebauten Michaelskloster in Kiew mit seinen goldenen Kuppeln, dessen Akustik hier schon fast die Rolle eines zusätzlichen Mitwirkenden zukommt. Das Urteil der BBC für „Sacred Works“ passt genauso auch auf die neuen „Sacred Songs“: „Eine hinreißende Kollektion von A-cappella-Chorwerken Silvestrovs, die perfekt seine eigene Beschreibung seiner Musik als ‘eine Antwort und ein Echo auf das, was bereits existiert’ illustrieren. Es ist die schiere Schönheit des Klangs, die das Ohr fesselt (...) leuchtend und lyrisch.”
- Songs For Vespers
- 1Come, Let Us Worship03:20
- 2World Of Peace02:57
- 3Holy God03:48
- 4O Virgin Mother Of God03:12
- 5Today You Release (Your Servant)03:57
- 6Many Years (Vivat)03:17
- 7Silent Night03:44
- Psalms And Prayers
- 8Praise God All Ye Nations (Psalm 116)02:11
- 9Lord, My Heart Swells Not With Pride (Psalm 130)03:15
- 10Lord Jesus Christ04:12
- 11Blessed Is He (Psalm 1)02:57
- 12O King Of Heaven02:40
- 13With The Saints Grant Eternal Peace01:45
- 14Our Father03:35
- Two Psalms Of David
- 15To You, O Lord, I Call (Psalm 27)04:24
- 16The Lord Is My Shepherd (Psalm 22)04:30
- Two Spiritual Refrains
- 17Do Not Forsake Me04:00
- 18Alleluia03:14
- Two Spiritual Songs
- 19Cherubic Hymn03:17
- 20Many Years (Vivat)02:29
- Three Spiritual Songs
- 21Cherubic Hymn03:57
- 22Many Years (Vivat)02:06
- 23Alleluia01:48
“Silvestrov’s music is not only instantly recognizable; it is complex and full of intensity, uncompromising and yet, like Pärt and Kancheli, utterly direct in communicating with audiences.” — Gramophone
Since 2001, ECM has championed the art of Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov with recordings of his orchestral, chamber and vocal works – creations that stand as some of the most arresting and moving in contemporary music. This continues in Silvestrov’s 75th birthday year with Sacred Songs, the seventh release ECM has devoted wholly to the composer’s music; it collects sets of songs composed from 2006 to 2008: Songs for Vespers, Psalms and Prayers, Two Psalms of David, Two Spiritual Refrains, Two Spiritual Songs and Three Spiritual Songs. These pieces reflect Silvestrov’s late-blooming interest in composing for voices, which has led to the ECM albums Requiem for Larissa (released in 2004) and Sacred Works (2010). Like Sacred Works, the new Sacred Songs features the idiomatically attuned, even otherworldly performances of Ukraine’s Kiev Chamber Choir under the direction of co-founder Mykola Hobdych, with the recordings made in the resounding air of St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, an ancient building recently reconstructed, whose acoustic is almost a joint performer with the choir.
In his liner notes, Paul Griffiths sets the tone:
Sacred songs – songs enunciating words from a church service, as all these do – place themselves in a fold in time, where a specific moment touches the ageless. The words come without date or authorship; they have been spoken and sung for so long that their origins have been effaced. They just are. They are as they always have been and as they always will be: Much of the Orthodox liturgy has survived in continuous use from long before the arrival of Christianity in Kiev more than a millennium ago, which makes this body of texts near timeless for such temporary beings as we are. How can music, music composed in the 21st century, not put a limit to that long resonance? Perhaps by sounding, new as it is, already like a memory.
Silvestrov’s sacred vocal music often evokes the pealing or clangour of bells, which echo through the centuries of Orthodox tradition he draws upon. Griffiths writes: “Bells in this culture are voices, sounded by their ‘tongues’, as clappers are still called in modern Ukrainian and Russian, laying the ground for music that has voices as bells. Through transparent screens of folk song and popular tune, even from back before the Word was heard in Kiev, we are hearing a deeply ancient thrum.”
The composer turned to choral composition relatively late in his career, after spending decades concentrating on piano and chamber music, as well as symphonic works. Silvestrov said: “Being an individualist, choirs were never my initial interest. The piano – there lies my fate.” In 1977, shortly after completing his Silent Songs (ECM 1898/99), he wrote an a cappella cantata based on verses by Taras Schewtschenko, but it took almost 20 years for the piece to receive its premiere. He eventually composed the large-scale Requiem for Larissa (ECM 1778), a work that Silvestrov has said was a way for mourning his wife’s early demise. It was Mykola Hobdych’s persistent encouragement that motivated Silvestrov to immerse himself more deeply in the choral world and to study ages-old Russian litanies.
Since 2001, ECM has championed the art of Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov with recordings of his orchestral, chamber and vocal works – creations that stand as some of the most arresting and moving in contemporary music. This continues in Silvestrov’s 75th birthday year with Sacred Songs, the seventh release ECM has devoted wholly to the composer’s music; it collects sets of songs composed from 2006 to 2008: Songs for Vespers, Psalms and Prayers, Two Psalms of David, Two Spiritual Refrains, Two Spiritual Songs and Three Spiritual Songs. These pieces reflect Silvestrov’s late-blooming interest in composing for voices, which has led to the ECM albums Requiem for Larissa (released in 2004) and Sacred Works (2010). Like Sacred Works, the new Sacred Songs features the idiomatically attuned, even otherworldly performances of Ukraine’s Kiev Chamber Choir under the direction of co-founder Mykola Hobdych, with the recordings made in the resounding air of St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, an ancient building recently reconstructed, whose acoustic is almost a joint performer with the choir.
In his liner notes, Paul Griffiths sets the tone:
Sacred songs – songs enunciating words from a church service, as all these do – place themselves in a fold in time, where a specific moment touches the ageless. The words come without date or authorship; they have been spoken and sung for so long that their origins have been effaced. They just are. They are as they always have been and as they always will be: Much of the Orthodox liturgy has survived in continuous use from long before the arrival of Christianity in Kiev more than a millennium ago, which makes this body of texts near timeless for such temporary beings as we are. How can music, music composed in the 21st century, not put a limit to that long resonance? Perhaps by sounding, new as it is, already like a memory.
Silvestrov’s sacred vocal music often evokes the pealing or clangour of bells, which echo through the centuries of Orthodox tradition he draws upon. Griffiths writes: “Bells in this culture are voices, sounded by their ‘tongues’, as clappers are still called in modern Ukrainian and Russian, laying the ground for music that has voices as bells. Through transparent screens of folk song and popular tune, even from back before the Word was heard in Kiev, we are hearing a deeply ancient thrum.”
The composer turned to choral composition relatively late in his career, after spending decades concentrating on piano and chamber music, as well as symphonic works. Silvestrov said: “Being an individualist, choirs were never my initial interest. The piano – there lies my fate.” In 1977, shortly after completing his Silent Songs (ECM 1898/99), he wrote an a cappella cantata based on verses by Taras Schewtschenko, but it took almost 20 years for the piece to receive its premiere. He eventually composed the large-scale Requiem for Larissa (ECM 1778), a work that Silvestrov has said was a way for mourning his wife’s early demise. It was Mykola Hobdych’s persistent encouragement that motivated Silvestrov to immerse himself more deeply in the choral world and to study ages-old Russian litanies.
