This is not the first recording of Silvestrov’s Requiem, written in memory of his wife, Larissa Bondenko – it has to compete with the ECM disc with the ‘Dumka’ National Choir and National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine under Volodymyr Sirenko – but it is outstanding. If the recorded sound perhaps lacks the ultimate degree of the silky-smooth ECM touch, I for one do not regret it. Here is immediacy, power aplenty and a tremendous sense of the structure of the work as a whole, something very characteristic of the indefatigable Andres Mustonen.

One is reeled in like a fish on a line from the opening notes; the Munich players and singers under Mustonen spin from them the endless web of Silvestrov’s melody. For this is in effect a deconstruction of a Requiem, because it is as though the traditional sections of the Catholic funeral Mass are submerged under the composer’s relentless narrative, with depths and heights (that one might say include anger and a mystified ecstasy) that seem to be what enabled him to mourn the death of his wife properly. But Mustonen is not one to skip details, either: every instrumental nuance in the Dies irae, for example, is clearly audible. Silvestrov has a habit of creating short dialogues within the orchestral texture, so this is hugely important.

Easily the most intimate moment in this most intimate of Requiems is the setting of Taras Shevchenko’s ‘Goodbye, O world’, verses from a farewell to Ukraine, as the fourth movement. Soloists and choir combine in sublime fashion. Of course, at present it has an extra, unwanted resonance, but I challenge anyone not to be moved by it. And for those who know it, the origins of the Agnus Dei in Silvestrov’s piano piece The Messenger are certainly audible, and, of course, idiomatically reworked. This is a great work in a great recording. Ivan