Valentin Silvestrov: Silent Songs [Import]

Valentin Silvestrov (Composer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Composer: Valentin Silvestrov
• Audio CD (October 19, 2004)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Import
• Label: ECM Records
• ASIN: B0002XV2UM
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #269,225 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, yet disturbingly comforting., November 11, 2004

By 

Cogito Inter Alia (Rocky Mountains) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Valentin Silvestrov: Silent Songs (Audio CD)

Silvestrov delivers power through the simplicity of piano and an introspectively shaky baritone. The message of the melodies preclude the need for translation--this music touches the heart and exemplifies the adage "music is the universal language". Yet, lugbrious and oftentimes languishing, the tenor of the recording is very melanacholy. But, the listener can somehow relate to the deep emotion of the composer. You can feel as if he speaks from his entire life and experience and expects closure. A few songs glimpse hope found in disaster (see track 9 on the first CD), but a complete attention to the entire recording renders satisfaction.
A fine mix of simplicity, genius, comfort, and haunting soul exposure. A great example of the depth of the Ukrainian spirit, as well as a tribute to their wonderful (and sometimes neglected)contribution to music.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most significant lieder cycle of the 20th century., October 22, 2006

By 

Poncho (Ontario) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Valentin Silvestrov: Silent Songs (Audio CD)

I've noticed that most significant lieder cycles are usually qualified as being "the [fill in the blank] version of Schubert's Winterreise." So Eisler's Hollywood Songbook becomes the American (or German, or Post-serialist, or even Socialist) Winterreise, and so on. In spite of how annoying this trend might be, I really think Silvestrov's Silent Songs deserves the title "The 20th-century Winterreise."

Why? No only is the cycle aching beautiful, but there lurk within it depths of what one might call extra-musical resonance as well. Silent Songs were composed after Silvestrov was expelled from the Soviet Composer's Union in 1974. His public career as a composer was over, and he turned to the ultimate "private" genre - the lied. What had once been the favoured parlour music becomes in Silvestrov's hands a kind of commentary on the nature of privacy itself - enforced privacy, in his case. Thus the emotions which each song here evokes run the range between amused introspection and despair, with lonliness colouring all. There are times when the feeling that these songs are truly "silent" - that we genuinely within someone's mind, listening to their every thought - becomes almost claustrophobic.

The engineers place the baritone's voice every so slightly forward, and what would normally sound like a mistake works to highlight the sense of uncomfortable closeness between the voice and the listener. This is ECM's finest release of Silvestrov's work, and that's saying a whole lot. Could we have the symphonies now, please?

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars intimate in the extreme..., November 17, 2004

By 

Larry L. Looney (Austin, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Valentin Silvestrov: Silent Songs (Audio CD)

...and that can be a wonderful thing. In the case of this recording, it's one factor that makes it one of the most moving and beautiful I've heard in some time.

One reviewer (I can't recall where I read it, sorry...) said that it felt as if Yokovenko was singing right into the ear of the listener -- and that's a very apt characterization. The notes by the pianist in the booklet recall preparing to perform the songs on the concert stage for the first time, in Moscow, in 1985. He cites the preparation and the performance as one of the happiest moments of his artistic life -- it shows in his performance, as well as in that of baritone Sergey Yokovenko. The opportunity to present a program such as this, with the challenges and rewards that it embodies, is a rare one.

The texts are from a variety of poets -- Pushkin, Baratynsky, Sehvchenko, Mandelstam, Yesenin and other Russians, as well as Western icons Keats and Shelley. Whether Russian or Western in their source, the pieces here are universally beautiful -- the translations are provided in the booklet (as usual with ECM releases, the packaging is first-rate), but this music speaks directly to the soul of the listener. The emotion it carries needs no translation.

As I listen to this recording, I can easily imagine that the music is being performed for me alone -- but I'll be generous and share it with everyone. I can't recommend this CD highly enough -- heartfelt thanks to ECM for making it available. I encourage listeners who are unfamiliar with Silvestrov's work to check out some of the other ECM packages of his music, such as REQUIEM FOR LARISSA; LEGGIERO, PESANTE; and METAMUSIK, POSTLUDIUM.