Customer Reviews

Valentin Silvestrov: Symphony No.5 / Postludium

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I listened to this CD daily for months on end. It is difficult to describe how Silvestrov achieves his effects, but the end result is hypnotic. This symphony has a narrative strength all too rare in today's symphonic music.

For a beguiling taste, listen to the fourth track (the symphony is in a single lengthy movement, but Sony is to be congratulated for providing such extensive interior access). Then go back and listen from the start. At times dissonant, other times merely strange, more often lushly lyrical, the Fifth Symphony makes a haunting impact that compels the listener to hear the work over and over again. The coupled "Piano Concerto" is similarly attractive, but fails to make the lasting impact of the symphony.

And don't be misled by other earlier works by this contemporary Russian composer, such as the Second Symphony, which seems to aim for greater "modernity" while only infrequently hinting at the sublime depths of the Fifth.

Do yourself a favor and get ahold of this recording. It will take you to realms rarely visited in today's symphonic music.

I agree with the previous reviewers. During all the years I've spent collecting Russian/Soviet symphonies, I kept hearing this name <Silvestrov>, particularly in the context of his 5th Symphony. As the Soviet Union crumbled, I found I had to make allowances for many works that flirted with 'modernity', since their new freedom obviously presented the post-Shostakovich generation of composers with the opportunity to experiment in a way not previously available, and some of the results were frankly a bit naive, certainly not very compelling. Elements of this can be found at some stage, however briefly, in the works of Schnittke, Shchedrin, Kancheli and so on.
What is it about Silvestrov's 5th, which I've had for quite a while now? It's dangerously close to being self-indulgent, a major musical wallow, and yet somehow it escapes this danger triumphantly. Like all great symphonies it takes you on a journey, and at its beatific close I know I've been on that journey, (though in all honesty I don't quite know where I've been!) Its general pace is slow, but it never tries your patience,- you listen and you wouldn't want it otherwise. The adagietto from Mahler's 5th comes to mind, also the final pages of the latter's 10th (as realised by Cooke and others). Haunting, beautiful, and, arguably, most important of all, it greatly rewards repeated listening. I'm ordering the 6th when I've completed this review, as I've heard similar great things of it. (The 2nd Symphony caused me the same reaction as it did a previous reviewer, a feeling that the composer was going through his 'Oh I can do this now!' stage. I must try again, though, as inital reactions can always change as you become more 'au fait' with a composer's style and musical language.)
Beautiful recording and performance.

I wish that I could recall who suggested this work to me, because it led me into the world of Silvestrov's music. Hopefully this recording is re-issued, allowing others to experience it also.

After running afoul of Soviet music bureaucrats for writing bold and independent-minded music, the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov left the public eye for several years. When he returned in the late 1970s, it was with a radical new style. The modernist who had once tried to blaze a new trail forward with the latest techniques felt that music had split into too many different directions, and the area he would direct his energies would be into "postludes" on last common musical heritage, the Classical and Romantic eras. The distinctive soundworld he developed is marked by lush orchestral textures based greatly in traditional harmony, but without any development. The critic Paul Griffith's compared a Silvestrov orchestral work to a black lake, whose surface is disturbed by strokes of an oar, melodies arising in one instrument to leave "ripples" in the lines of surrounding players. Yet, this is not a complete return to the past, for here and there we find weird leaps in Webern-like intervals

The Symphony No. 5 (1980-1982) was Silvestrov's first big orchestral work in his new style. Cast in a single movement, we find layers and layers of "commentary" on the works of late great Romantic composers like Bruckner and Mahler. Lovely flute and harp lines that contemplatively go on and on are interrupted by sudden bangs on percussion and brass, and then replaced with new melodies. The only problem is the length. While the music is beautiful, it doesn't seem like it can be sustained at 47 minutes. One's attention begins to wander not much past halfway in.

But luckily the disc includes the shorter orchestral work "Postludium" (1984). It is essentially the same sort of attempt as the Symphony, but with a notable piano part. Here one feels no fatigue at listening all the way through, and in fact I return to this piece more than any other Silvestrov work. There isn't much of a difference in this performance from the one on the ECM disc, and Alexei Lubimov is the soloist there as well. I would recommend hearing the piece here on Sony, though, because the symphony is a more historically important work than "Metamusik" on the ECM disc.

A major reservation I have about Silvestrov is that he seems to have gotten himself stuck in a rut, and stylistic progress appears in only a few recent works. To me he resembles very much Einojuhani Rautavaara, who has been rewriting the same piece for over 30 years now. Even his successful works, like the "Requiem for Larissa", seem to appeal to me only by the skin of their teeth. Silvestrov is a composer worth encountering for his unique style and to understand better the late Soviet arts world--Silvestrov maintained close friendships with Gubaidulina, Schnittke, Aigi and others. Still, there's no guarantee that you'll want to move past this disc.

Now that this disc has been reissued (by ArkivMusic), I have finally heard it. Silvestrov's Symphony No. 5 (1980 - 1982) is widely reputed to be his masterpiece, so I patiently waited to hear it rather than starting with "lesser Silvestrov." (Ironically, just as No. 5 is reissued, the first recording of the long-delayed Symphony No. 6 is released by ECM.) Alfred Schnittke, whom I consider to be one of the late 20th century greats, once called the Ukrainian Silvestrov "the greatest composer of our generation." Arvo Part also holds him in high esteem. I'm afraid that based on this music, I cannot agree with Schnittke and Part.

The Symphony No. 5 is 47 minutes long, and is divided into nine short movements. The opening is suitably dramatic, full of Schnittkian tension and dissonance, and the listener is led to expect further drama. Alas, the music instead just ebbs away, but it takes forever to ebb. There are interruptions of tension (in Part 5, and again in the concluding Part 9), but the overall sensation is like gradually succumbing to the effects of vodka or barbituates. Seth Brodsky has called Silvestrov's music "a body of slow, lovely, and astoundingly detailed "post-ludes" emanating the air of a Mahler adagio through vast waves of time and subtle decay." Comparisons to Mahler, though, are vastly exaggerated -- Mahler said a symphony should "include the world," and he would never have made the Adagietto of his Symphony no. 5 the entire piece! Likewise, some have compared this music to the fourth movement of Mahler's Ninth, but that was the conclusion of a long, varied, and dramatic work. I seriously doubt that most Mahlerians would find much resemblance.

The 18-minute "Postludium," a piano concerto featuring Alexei Lubimov, who has since recorded several more works by Silvestrov for ECM, is in the same vein, but less soporific. The last 6'34" section, marked Dolce, features a beautiful melody. It repeats and repeats, and sticks in your head, a sweet conclusion to sixty five minutes of less than stunning or memorable developments.

Schnittke developed what he called "polystylism," combining music from different periods within a postmodern framework. He utilized tonality without lapsing into facile neoromanticism. Silvestrov apparently sees his music as postmodern as well, referring to it as "meta-music" which is an echo, or as he prefers to call it, a "coda" or "epilogue" to classical and romantic music after it has ended, or died. Schnittke would use a romantic phrase but call it a "painted corpse" to indicate his self-awareness of the gesture, and the intended irony. Silvestrov's music simply seems to mainly luxuriate in a nostalgic haze, a superficial romanticism that does not seem complex or multi-layered enough to sustain Schittke's sort of balance of angst and playfulness.

Seth Brodsky writes of Silvestrov's Fifth "...underneath this floating music lies a tremendous complexity, both technically and emotionally; the accumulative (sic) expressive effect is undeniable and unexpected." I can easily refute this statement -- I deny it. I have been harsh, yes, perhaps too harsh. Silvestrov has his moments. There is an elegiac beauty to be found episodically, and an affinity with the tragic sense found in the music of his fellow Soviet-bloc composers Schnittke and Part. If you enjoy their music you may enjoy this disc. But be prepared with some strong coffee.