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New Music I Like (No. 2): Valentin Silvestrov

8/31/2012

1 Comment

 
Picture
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.)


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
1 Comment
Adrian link
1/23/2014 09:49:36 pm

Thanks a lot for enjoying this beauty article with me. I am apreciating it very much! Looking forward to another great article. Good luck to the author! all the best!

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    Eatock Daily

    I'm a composer based in Toronto – and this is my classical music blog, Eatock Daily.

    When I first started blogging, Eatock Daily was a place to re-post the articles I wrote for Toronto’s Globe and Mail and National Post newspapers, the Houston Chronicle, the Kansas City Star and other publications.

    But now I have stepped back from professional music journalism, and I'm spending more time composing.

    These days, my blog posts are infrequent, and are mostly concerned with my own music. However, I do still occasionally post comments on musical topics, including works I've discovered, enjoyed, and wish to share with others.


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