Valentin Silvestrov is one of the most stimulating post-modern composers on the new classical music scene. His music is at once harmonically demanding, rhythmically simple, and extraordinarily captivating. Silvestrov is a kind of cross between Arvo P\u00e4rt and Anton Webern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His style, which combines repetitive minimalism with orchestrations worthy of a full-bodied and copious Webern, transports any listener who dares to experience a world where time seems distended, like an immense black lake standing still under the gaze of a discreet moon, where the slightest phrase becomes an echo that does not die but rather remains suspended and blends in with what follows. In Silvestrov’s work, the past is a present that announces the future!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tranquil, mysterious, mesmerizing, confusing, even destabilizing, but above all irresistibly fascinating, this music is essential for anyone who loves artistic proposals, acoustic or electronic, contemporary classical or art-rock, which defy the agreed notions of temporality and attention in musical listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ode to A Nightingale<\/em> is the piece that most closely resembles Webern in terms of orchestration and Morton Feldman for the repetitive structure of the basic motif. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Piano Concertino<\/em> and Symphony No. 7<\/em> are my favourite pieces on the program. All the basic Silvestrovian elements are there, with a discreet but richer orchestral amplitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don’t be surprised to hear, here and there, some almost Mozartean passages, sprinkled softly through some of the scores. Silvestrov loves to create short, subtle, unexpected landmarks like these. If a soundtrack vibrates ad infinitum as it accompanies a cosmic traveller through a black hole to go beyond known time and space, this is the one!<\/p>\n\n\n\n