Country : Ireland Label : Louth Contemporary Music Society Genres and styles : Classical / Contemporary Year :

Embers : Music of Valentin Silvestrov and Raymond Deane

· by Frédéric Cardin

Here is a program of great coherence. All three pieces, two from Ireland-born Raymond Deane and one from ukrainian Velentin Silvestrov, bathe the listener in the same sound world, one that seems to slowly breathe in and out hypnotising sighs made of pure sound with fragments of melodies, as if they were the musical-physical embodiment of an entity originally made of pure melancholia. Crescendos and decrescendos follow each others, amplify and fade out, elsewhere they seem to disintegrate slowly, before resuscitating, like a cycle of infinite Big Bangs and Big Crunches.

Deane’s Marthiya, for violin, viola and cello (three members of the Crash Ensemble) doesn’t pretend to have a programmatic nature, but it nevertheless has an acknowledged debt to the Middle-East. Marthiya is a term associated with an ancient persian and arabic poetic form. Deane treats it with a recurring and motivic harmonic progression, a kind of mantra I’d say, that also refers to specific characteristics of semitic languages. An atmosphere of darkness, should I say funeral-like, that permeates the work, and inspired by the horrible devastation that has befallen on Irak since the 2003 war, completes the link to the middle-eastern thematic, in Deane’s own description.

Carducci Quartet

Deane’s string quartet, titled Embers, dates back to 1973, but you wouldn’t notice the passage of time between this and the previous piece (from 2005). Both claim a remarkable coherence in the Irish composer’s musical dialectic. That being said, Embers is more easily approachable than Marthiya. A touching and limpidly constructed melody serves as an anchor throughout the work. Or almost, should I say, because Deane, as the piece evolves, deconstructs it and makes it disappear, slowly replacing it by another musical reality. Embers is an homage to a Samuel Beckett radio play, of the same title. Memories, dreams, almost forgotten impressions of past life defining moments that fade away in one’s mind, like degrading Polaroid images, almost totally gone, but briefly reanimated and revivified, like embers one tries to maintain alive, that’s Embers. Beckett’s and Deane’s. Annihilation is inevitable, but the fight for life is in itself a small victory.

Silvestrov is a quasi-superstar of contemporary music. His sound world marries in a unique way some aspects of the american minimalist school (repetition) with a harmonic personality veiring on the grey-ish, oscillating between modern chromaticism and melancholic tonality, all in all creating a sense of pervading fogginess and an ambiguity that feels like a continuously unresolved dream. His is a music accessible and demanding at the same time. Whatever the description, he has become a favourite of new music geeks and enthusiasts, which I am an avid example! String Quartet no 3 was originally commissioned for the Kronos Quartet, via the help of Louth Contemporary Music Society (a label I didn’t know about until recently, shame on me!!). So let’s give them a great heartfelt thank you because this is a great piece. It has all the Silvestrov tricks of the trade that we like, but with an apparent maturity that keeps on getting better, like an exceptional wine. The composer says he has put some Irish-like melodic bits and impressions here and there. Well, I think they are more than bits and fragments. Between Silvestrov-y typical ghostly sighs and sound breaths appear romantic but sorrowful melodies that will haunt you and bring tears in your eyes. It is rainy day beauty, full of something French call spleen, or Portuguese saudade. It almost hurts, but you keep wanting more of it! This cat and mouse game between two musical poles is a Silvestrov trait, but here it is supremely expressed and controlled, and it nourishes the expecting music-lover ears and spirit.

Crash Ensemble

Sound is excellent, and the Carduccis and Crash Ensemble (well three of them in Marthiya) create wonderfully purring bass sounds, contrasted by luminous points and scintillating lines where needs be. 

Superb release from a label we here on our side of the big lake wish to know a lot more soon. 

Latest 360 Content

Transforming Hiroshima mon amour into contemporary opera: Christian Lapointe and Rosa Lind tell the story

Transforming Hiroshima mon amour into contemporary opera: Christian Lapointe and Rosa Lind tell the story

Sparks – MAD!

Sparks – MAD!

“Hiroshima, mon amour”: An Evening to Remember

“Hiroshima, mon amour”: An Evening to Remember

Peter Murphy – Silver Shade

Peter Murphy – Silver Shade

Ken Pomeroy – Cruel World

Ken Pomeroy – Cruel World

Art of the Line: Klangkarussell’s Euro Vision at SAT

Art of the Line: Klangkarussell’s Euro Vision at SAT

Festival des Saveurs | Closing With Reggae

Festival des Saveurs | Closing With Reggae

Centroamérica – a powerful docu-play about truth and connection in an age of distance and denial

Centroamérica – a powerful docu-play about truth and connection in an age of distance and denial

Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Tamir Barzilay – Phosphene Journal

Tamir Barzilay – Phosphene Journal

The best ‘’Candlelight concert‘’ ever.

The best ‘’Candlelight concert‘’ ever.

Men I Trust – Equus Caballus

Men I Trust – Equus Caballus

The Halluci Nation – Path of the Baby Face

The Halluci Nation – Path of the Baby Face

A lap steel guitar choir and an angel to end the Innovations en concert 24-25 season

A lap steel guitar choir and an angel to end the Innovations en concert 24-25 season

The OSM and Abel Selaocoe: Evenings When You’d Like to Stop Time

The OSM and Abel Selaocoe: Evenings When You’d Like to Stop Time

Reaching for the sky: Francis Choinière’s challenge to end his OPCM’s 10th season

Reaching for the sky: Francis Choinière’s challenge to end his OPCM’s 10th season

Piknic 3: A Little Bit of Everything Under the Sun

Piknic 3: A Little Bit of Everything Under the Sun

Cazzu – Latinaje

Cazzu – Latinaje

Stereolab – Instant Holograms On Metal Film

Stereolab – Instant Holograms On Metal Film

SMCQ | In memoriam Jocelyn Morlock

SMCQ | In memoriam Jocelyn Morlock

Abbey Road at Festival Classica

Abbey Road at Festival Classica

Mira Choquette – Hier encore

Mira Choquette – Hier encore

Jared Dunn; Anna Gorecka – Gorecki’s World of the Piano

Jared Dunn; Anna Gorecka – Gorecki’s World of the Piano

Subscribe to our newsletter