Alexei Lubimov, Jana Ivanilova - Valentin Silvestrov: Stufen (Song Cycle) (1999)

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Alexei Lubimov, Jana Ivanilova - Valentin Silvestrov: Stufen (Song Cycle) (1999)

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Valentin Silvestrov is not just the Ukraine’s most prominent composer but also a major voice in the music of our time: a quiet voice, to be sure, and one that some will pigeon-hole at the soft-core end of the New Spirituality. But even a first encounter should suggest the presence of deeper perspectives, and encounters with the full range of his music only serve to confirm that impression.

Russian commentators have long since ranged Silvestrov alongside Schnittke, Gubaidulina and Denisov as one of the most important figures that came to maturity in the 1970s. It was then that he produced music such as the two Cantatas – the earlier one for soprano and chamber orchestra, setting words by Tyuchev and Blok, the later one for a cappella choir to verses by Ukraine’s national poet, Taras Chevchenko. Both works blend Webernian angularity with an ecstatic lyricism.

It was the trance-like element that won out, as Silvestrov ‘voluntarily disarmed’ and set out to explore a world of nostalgic beauty he had previously only glimpsed through the chinks of his modernist armour. This makes the Ode to a Nightingale (1983) the most compelling work on the Cantata disc (the Diptych of 1995 is in more standard religioso vein). And it informs the entirety of Stufen, an 11-part cycle of songs to texts by various poets, including Pushkin, Mandelshtam and, again, Keats (‘To Sleep’, as also set in Britten’s Serenade). Elegy and world-weariness are the prevailing tones, as though Silvestrov had somehow climbed inside Mahler’s ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’ and miraculously discovered a twin planet.

The Cantatas are performed with delicacy and conviction, and Jana Ivanilova beautifully catches the fragile, floating quality Silvestrov asks for in the song-cycle. The composer himself demonstrates the caressing touch he envisages for his piano music (though it has to be said that the two pieces that make up Ustnaya muzyka come across as rather unfocused by comparison with the songs). Both discs are superbly recorded and nicely supported by Frans Lemaire’s and Tatyana Frumkis’s essays. The title of Ustnaya muzyka (roughly, ‘verbal music’) is misprinted in two different ways on the jewel-case.

If you have already caught the Silvestrov bug, you will need no further bidding. The best place to start, however, would be the Fifth Symphony, whose finest recording is on Megadisc, home also to his huge song-cycle Silent Songs. And if you catch sight of Megadisc’s Knaifel, Terteryan and Ustvolskaya discs, be sure to snap them up.

Review by David Fanning, Gramophone Magazine

I've only discovered the work of Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov over the course of the past year – but what treasures I've found! Born in Kiev in 1937, his first works appeared in the early 60s, firmly rooted in what could be referred to as 'Western European modernism' – but as his career progressed and his compositional abilities and approaches developed, with careful reflection and contemplation on the very nature of music (and poetry), he shifted directions, armed with the confidence and courage of his convictions, and embraced the expressive melodicism eschewed by many advocates of the avant-garde (too many of whom turn their backs on the past completely, rather than have the wisdom to learn from it). Cutting his compositional teeth in the modernist/avant-garde school allowed Silvestrov to eventually move beyond the constraints that it unwittingly created.

The song-cycle STUFEN is very much akin to Silvestrov's SILENT SONGS, and to much of his work since the mid-1970s – not that they echo each other in a way that reflects a lack of imagination, but in the way in which they merge music and poetry into a cohesive whole. In commenting on the relationship between the two art forms, Silvestrov says, 'Poetry is essentially music that has been transformed into words meant for eternity…When music touches poetry…all that matters is the actual meeting between the two. There is no philosophy, no world view, only the world singing its own praises as a musical testimony to life itself.' (This quote is from the CD booklet notes.)

The poetry Silvestrov places at the heart of this music is from a variety of Russian masters – Blok, Sologub, Tyuychev, Pushkin, Mandelstam, Baratinski – as well John Keats. He masterfully constructs the music around the soul of the words – the two become inseparable: the 'meeting between the two', as he puts it in the quotation above, is perfect. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The piano sings gently, as much as the vocalist – neither overshadows the other. The music itself seems so moved by the words at the core of these pieces that, as is the case in his SILENT SONGS, it's almost as if the piano cannot stop itself from playing after the words end – but then, the postlude is a form at the centre of Silvestrov's musical philosophy.

The two 'wordless songs' that end the programme are played by Silvestrov himself – and they are unbelievably beautiful and expressive. From the soul, heart and mind of the composer, through his hands, the instrument truly finds its voice.

Alexei Lubimov has interpreted Silvestrov on other recordings (His ECM recordings of Silvestrov's METAMUSIK/POSTLUDIUM, and DER BOTE, which includes two Silvestrov piano pieces, are both outstanding.) – his playing here is nothing short of perfection. Jana Ivanilova's voice holds these songs tenderly and gently, allowing the words to 'sing themselves' (Silvestrov's instructions to potential performers).

This is a hard disc to find – I went through three distributors and finally found it. It's worth the effort – it's flawless in all respects. I can absolutely give it my highest recommendation – pass it up at your peril…!

Review by Larry L. Looney

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Alexei Lubimov, Jana Ivanilova - Valentin Silvestrov: Stufen (Song Cycle) (1999)

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Alexei Lubimov, Jana Ivanilova - Valentin Silvestrov: Stufen (Song Cycle) (1999)

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Alexei Lubimov, Jana Ivanilova - Valentin Silvestrov: Stufen (Song Cycle) (1999)

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Alexei Lubimov, Jana Ivanilova - Valentin Silvestrov: Stufen (Song Cycle) (1999)

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