Silvestrov Symphonies Nos 4 & 5
Silvestrov’s symphonies find powerful advocates in these Finnish recordings
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Valentin Silvestrov
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: BIS
Magazine Review Date: 3/2010
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 66
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: BIS-CD1703
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Symphony No 4 |
Valentin Silvestrov, Composer
Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Conductor Lahti Symphony Orchestra Valentin Silvestrov, Composer |
Symphony No. 5 |
Valentin Silvestrov, Composer
Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Conductor Lahti Symphony Orchestra Valentin Silvestrov, Composer |
Author: Richard_Whitehouse
Although Valentin Silvestrov is decently represented on disc, a cycle of his eight (to date) symphonies has yet to emerge. Hopefully these accounts from the Lahti Symphony will duly expand into one, as the orchestra has the security of ensemble and timbral finesse to do full justice to this music. The two works might be described in terms of transition and fulfilment. In the Fourth Symphony (1976), the “sonorist” music of Silvestrov’s Polish contemporaries is detectable – notably in the way strings and brass emerge as interdependent sound-sources that define the overall structure, its impetus being channelled into a finely wrought culmination then a passionless epilogue. It was with the Fifth Symphony (1982) that Silvestrov arrived at full maturity, most notably in his concept of the postlude as a means of sustaining a symphonic discourse without the need for development per se. An evolution, then, which consists of musical “end-pieces” imbued with a quality, but not necessarily a function, which is intrinsically symphonic.
A symphonic logic that Jukka-Pekka Sarasate amply conveys in these responsive performances. Of the available comparisons, Andrei Boreyko is more intense in the Fourth and more expansive in the Fifth – though Saraste is truer to the spirit of the latter work in the cohesion with which its sections overlap so that salient ideas echo and anticipate each other in a process as formally inevitable as it is cumulatively expressive. Wholly natural sound (SACD encoding would have been beneficial) and informative notes round out an impressive release.
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