Album Notes

A double album of music by one of the most outstanding composers of our time – Valentin Silvestrov, with 7 compositions recorded for the first time ever!


If I was asked to name a modern composer, the first one would be Silvestrov. Valentin is undoubtedly the most interesting composer of today, even if the majority is sure to understand that much later on...

Arvo Pärt


Valentin Vassilevich Silvestrov was born on September 30, 1937 in Kiev. He received his professional education as a composer at the Kiev Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1963 as a pupil of Boris Lyatoshinsky (prior to that he had studied at an evening music school and at a construction institute). He was a winner of the International Sergei Koussevitsky Award in the USA in 1967 and of the International Gaudeamus Competition (1970, the Netherlands). He received the title of a People’s Artist of the Ukraine in 1989. Among his works are numerous orchestral compositions (including seven symphonies and a few compositions for solo instrument or solo voice and orchestra), solo and choral cantatas, works for chamber ensemble for various combinations (among them two string quartets, sonatas for violin and cello, the triptych Drama), four piano sonatas and other music for piano as well as numerous vocal compositions with chamber ensemble accompaniment.
Silvestrov’s music is performed in numerous European countries and in the USA. Among its performers are such outstanding musicians as Alexei Lubimov, Gidon Kremer, Ivan Monighetti, Tatiana Grindenko, conductors Andrei Boreiko, Dennis Russell Davies, Roman Kofman and David Robertson.
Valentin Silvestrov ranks among the most outstanding composers of today. In his music one could sense an exceptional spiritual saturation and a purity of artistic will. Distancing itself from programmatic concrete nature, avoiding predicant pathos and the least trace of topicality, Silvestrov’s music speaks about what is most important – about the human being, who listens attentively to himself and to the surrounding world. According to the composer, “music is not a philosophy, but a song sung by the world about itself, a sort of a musical testimony of existence”.
The lyrical nature of Silvestrov’s talent lets itself be heard in many particularities of the composer’s style. It is manifested in the melodic saturation of the texture, as well as a special kind of economy of means in regards to sound, its birth and fading away. In the chamber compositions, which made up the program of the concert, it reveals itself also in a peculiar dialogue quality. It seems that Silvestrov joins a quiet, serious conversation with the shadows of the classical past, either continuing and elaborating on fragments of the music of Schubert or Wagner or dedicating his own miniatures to them – the fond portraits of Bach, Schubert or Glinka. The motive of the dialogue makes itself known in dedications of another type – in pieces, assigned to be tributes to friends, friends-musicians including the participants of the recorded concert. Two Dialogues with Postface are dedicated to Yuri Polubelov, Moments of Poetry and Music are dedicated to Mark Belorusets, Three Songs to Poems by Gennadi Aigui were presented to Andrei Volkonsky, Lacrimosa – to Tigran Mansurian, the “Post Scriptum” Sonata – to Dieter Rexroth and the Sonata Nr. 2 for piano – to Alexei Lubimov.
Epitaph L.B., Diptych and The Final Tune of a Wayfarer are dedicated to Larisa Yakovlevna Bondarenko, Valentin Solvestrov’s deceased wife. His music, just like before, is dedicated, first of all, to her memory: “Although Larisa has been gone from this world for a number of years, for me this is not so. She is constantly present in my life and in my music.”


Disc 1

Two Dialogues with Postface for piano (World Premiere Recording)
1. I. Wedding Waltz (Fr. Schubert ... V. Silvestrov) (1826 ... 2002) 5.26
2. II. Postlude (R. Wagner ... V. Silvestrov) (1882 ... 2001) 3.00
3. III. Morning Serenade (V. Silvestrov) (2002) 2.42

Moments of Poetry and Music for soprano and piano (2003)
4. I. Poem by Paul Celan (Russian translation by Mark Belorusets) 2.29
5. II. Melody – Post scriptum 4.17

Three Songs to Poems by Gennadi Aigui (2003)
6. I. 3:35
7. II. 1:46
8. III. 3:14

9. Lacrimosa for viola (2003) (World Premiere Recording) 3.56

10. Epitaph for viola and piano (1999) 8.34

„Post scriptum“ Sonata for violin and piano (1990)
11. I. Largo – Allegro – Allegretto 9.36
12. II. Andantino 4.05
13. III. Allegro vivace 3.24

Disc 2

1. Sonata Nr. 2 for piano (1975) 16.02

2. 28 July 1750 ... in Memory of J.S.B. for cello solo (2004) (World Premiere Recording) 6.11

8 June 1810 ... to the Birthday of R.Sch. for two cellos (2004) (World Premiere Recording)
3. Elegy 4.03
4. Serenade 1.53
5. Menuet 2.47

Diptych for soprano and piano (2004) (World Premiere Recording)
6. I. A Poem by Fedor Tiutchev 3.32
7. II. Postlude for piano 3.51

3 February 1857 ... in Memory of M.I.G. for piano (2004) (World Premiere Recording)
8. I. Sarabande 4.27
9. II. Waltz 3.48
10. III. Serenade 1.48

11. The Final Tune of a Wayfarer (Yaroslav Ivashkevitch, Russian translation by Muza Pavlova) (2002) 5.34

12. Lullaby for Emilii, the Cat and the Pianist, to the Poem by Valentin Silvestrov (2004) (World Premiere Recording) 5.49


Alexei Lubimov piano (Disc 1: 10-13; Disc 2: 1,8-10)
Svetlana Savenko soprano (Disc 1: 4-8; Disc 2:6,7,11,12)
Yury Polubelov piano (Disc 1:1-8; Disc 2: 6,7,11,12 )
Alexander Trostiansky violin (Disc 1: 11-13)
Ilya Gofman viola (Disc 1: 9,10)
Alexander Rudin cello (Disc 2:2-5)
Alexander Grashenkov cello (Disc 2: 2-5)