Valentin Silvestrov - Symphony No. 7; etc. (Christopher Lyndon-Gee)

Information

Composer: Valentin Silvestrov

• (01) Ode to the Nightingale
• (02) Cantata No. 4
• (06) Concertino for Piano and Small Orchestra
• (10) Moments of Poetry and Music
• (12) Symphony No. 7

Inna Galatenko, soprano

Oleg Bezborodko, piano

Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra

Christopher Lyndon-Gee, conductor

Date: 2020

Label: Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.574123

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Review

Anyone wanting to explore the mature output of the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov could hardly do better than hear this new Naxos release, featuring a series of works written across a span of 30 years, the majority of them not previously recorded. Ode to a Nightingale, set to a Russian translation of Keats’s poem, dates from 1983, shortly after the completion of the Fifth Symphony, widely regarded as Silvestrov’s finest achievement. The work commences with a flurry of jangling notes, after which the soprano enters, accompanied by sighing pools of luminescent sound from the orchestra and an ongoing sequence of short phrases from woodwind and piano, representing the nightingale. The same sombre and elegiac mood is maintained throughout the work’s 19-minute span, the soprano’s voice supplanted towards the end by the faint sound of laboured breathing.

The one-movement Symphony No 7, completed in 2003, is of similar dimensions but features a greater variety of expression, including an angst-ridden introduction, a romantic cadenza for piano just after the halfway point, and episodes of gentle rumination. A gradual thinning of texture as the work draws to a conclusion gives the impression of music evaporating into thin air, a haunting effect. The two-part Moments of Poetry and Music, composed in 2003, as well as the four-part Cantata No 4 and four-movement Concertino for piano and small orchestra, completed in 2014 and 2015 respectively, find Silvestrov working on a more songlike and intimate scale. Lyricism and nostalgia are the hallmarks of these pieces, a theme maintained even in the 12-note writing for soprano and piano that comprises the first part of Moments of Poetry and Music.

-- Christian Hoskins, Gramophone

More reviews:

http://www.classicalmusicsentinel.com/KEEP/silvestrov7.html
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2020/Dec/Silvestrov-Sym7-8574123.htm

https://www.allmusic.com/album/silvestrov-symphony-no-7-ode-to-a-nightingale-piano-concertino-mw0003401830

https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.574123&languageid=EN

https://www.amazon.com/Symphony-7-Oleg-Byezborodko/dp/B08BDBWF9H

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Valentyn Sylvestrov (born 30 September 1937 in Kiev) is a Ukrainian composer and pianist of contemporary classical music. He studied composition under Borys Lyatoshynsky, harmony and counterpoint under Levko Revutsky. Sylvestrov is perhaps best known for his post-modern musical style. His principal and published works include nine symphonies, poems for piano and orchestra, three string quartets, a piano quintet, three piano sonatas, piano pieces, chamber music, and vocal music. Sylvestrov's Symphony No. 5 (1980–1982) is considered by some to be his masterpiece.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentyn_Sylvestrov

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Christopher Lyndon-Gee studied music at Durham University, and subsequently in Rome with Franco Ferrara. He was also invited by Leonard Bernstein to Tanglewood, where he studied with Maurice Abravanel and others. During the 1990s Lyndon-Gee’s international conducting career took off; he developed a busy international career as a freelance conductor, which has taken him to Germany, Italy, England, Holland, Poland, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, and the US. Lyndon-Gee records extensively for the Marco Polo and Naxos labels, specialising in neglected composers such as Arthur Bliss, Igor Markevich and George Rochberg.

https://www.naxos.com/person/Christopher_Lyndon_Gee_31762/31762.htm

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