A Ukrainian symphony has its premiere
OrchestrasThe eighth symphony by Valentin Silvestrov was performed in Warsaw last Friday, its Polish premiere.
Andrey Boreyko conducted the national symphony orchestra of Katowice.
He writes: Because I truly believe ( since 33 years already) the music of this composer 100% deserves to be known and performed ( recorded) much more often – let me share with you the recording from the concert from last Friday. The composer was there, and wasn’t unhappy.
Knowing him – that’s mean the orchestra did good job.
When many orchestras were understandably playing the National Anthem, the LPO with SARASTE went much further and did the stunning and dark Silvestrov 4: an extraordinary concert (Goode in Mozart 25 survived from the original programme that had Strauss AUS ITALIEN with Zinman). His moving introduction to Sibelius 1, written when Finland was under threat from Russia (apologies for crude simplification) was followed by a performance greater than any I have heard. He returns next year to do it with the Philharmonia…
Heard the Ukrainian orchestra at Kennedy Center and they led off with Silvestrov Sym. No. 7. It seemed to be a series of peaks followed by dissapation, the last dissapation including wind musicians breathing through instruments without make a pitched sound. Bought the Naxos cd with No. 7 and there is a lot of other interesting material, including Concertino for Piano and Small Orch. One piece not impressive was the Ode, which seemed like a few minutes of music repeated over and over. He writes wistful, sad music with tonal melodies that goes down easy. But is nonetheless somehow moving. Good to hear he is still interested in writing symphonies.