Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov.
Here’s the second installment in my entirely subjective series of posts about composers active today who write music I like.
Velentin Silvestrov is a Ukrainian composer who was born in Kiev in 1937. Evidently, he never quite felt at home either with the Socialist Realist or the International Modernist schools – avoiding the former and repudiating the latter – but his aesthetic ideas and values have found a welcome home within the Postmodernist fold. (For a biography, see here.)
Velentin Silvestrov is a Ukrainian composer who was born in Kiev in 1937. Evidently, he never quite felt at home either with the Socialist Realist or the International Modernist schools – avoiding the former and repudiating the latter – but his aesthetic ideas and values have found a welcome home within the Postmodernist fold. (For a biography, see here.)
Silvestrov once said, “I do not write new music. My music is a response to and an echo of what already exists.” While I think it’s very decent of him to acknowldege the traditions of classical music as an inspiration, I can’t help thinking he gives himself too little credit for forging a strong and heartfelt personal style.
Here’s his Epitaph for piano and strings, from 1999. It’s a haunting and unsettling work – and although there may not be a chord in it from beginning to end that Richard Wagner never wrote, this music doesn’t rest comfortably on 19th-century laurels.
I’m sorry to say I don’t know who the performers are. But they’re good, so have a listen anyway.
© Colin Eatock 2012
Here’s his Epitaph for piano and strings, from 1999. It’s a haunting and unsettling work – and although there may not be a chord in it from beginning to end that Richard Wagner never wrote, this music doesn’t rest comfortably on 19th-century laurels.
I’m sorry to say I don’t know who the performers are. But they’re good, so have a listen anyway.
© Colin Eatock 2012
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