Valentin Silvestrov |
Among the almost daily shocks and surprises from the Ukraine has been the active engagement of the Ukrainian pianist/composer Valentin Silvestrov (b. 1937, Kiev). This
represents a distinct turnaround from the historical figure I have been
studying recently for a book about polystylism
in the late USSR: here I look at Silvestrov’s compositions alongside those
of Alfred Schnittke from about 1970 through 1991. During this period Silvestrov
withdrew from the Soviet dictates for loud, optimistic music into a “quiet”
style of composition. Initially it was founded on his own idiosyncratic ideal
of “kitsch”: “elegiac and not ironic,” he said. His “kitsch” subsequently
morphed in the early 1980s into his idea of a “post” style, a style that would
slowly end, ending but never ending: “It is not the end of music as art, but
the end of music, in which it may yet remain for a long time.”<1>
I have always taken this statement, from a 1990 interview, to be his artistic
credo: “I must write what pleases me and not what others like, or what the
times dictate, as is often said. Otherwise, it would be a state of affairs …
that cripples the imagination. … I must seek beauty.”<2>
Lately, however, the times have been dictating quite a lot
to Silvestrov. He apparently went to the
Maidan with some frequency during the protests and has composed a series of
pieces in response to each new turn of events. “I went to the Maidan, but what
could I do?” HERE we find him wrapped in the
Ukrainian flag at a memorial event there; as well as two songs he wrote in
response to the events of January 18–19, 2014.
The most moving of his recent compositions are two
memorials for the protestor Sergey Nigoyan, reportedly the first killed during
the shooting in Kiev on January 22, 2014. HERE we see Nigoyan reciting lines
from “Caucasus” (Kavkaz) by Ukraine’s beloved poet Taras Shevchenko while
standing on the Maidan. (This year is
the bicentenary of Shevchenko’s birth; Nigoyan was Armenian-Ukrainian.)
HERE are the two songs composed and recorded by
Silvestrov immediately after Nigoyan’s murder. The first sets the very same Shevchenko lines read by
Nigoyan.<3> It is written in a style reminiscent of Silvestrov’s Quiet Songs (1973–77) and his associated “kitsch” songs (among
them the Simple Songs, 1974–81). But
its unsettled opening and more agitated delivery also recall the Four Songs to texts by Osip Mandelstam
that Silvestrov composed in 1981 and 1982, when he said, “The prison atmosphere
at this time depressed us. Eventually it was as if an electric storm hit me,
and I had to write something as a sign of protest.”<4> The second of the recent Maidan songs in memory of Nigoyan sets the burial
prayer “Lay in rest with the saints”
(“Со святими упокой…”). This song is more reserved, a return to the
repose of the Quiet Songs. The
DIY intimacy of the recordings dominates their affect: vulnerable yet
determined, solitary yet meant to circulate on a global stage.
Judging from some local responses to the songs, Silvestrov
has managed to capture the grief and hope of the moment. His setting of the
Ukrainian hymn (also from late January) “truly were a gift of minutes of peace
and support,” as a journalist recently noted.
In this same interview [LISTEN], Silvestrov expressed outrage over
the Crimea situation, declaring, “I think that Putin is simply insane!” His
statements reveal the tensions and complexities of the situation—the
interlinking of Russia and Ukraine, culturally if not politically. Silvestrov
distinguishes between the “political face of Russia,” which is says is
“entirely covered in excrement,” and its “authentic face”: “Chaikovsky,
Lermontov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and the holy Orthodox Church.” He similarly divides
Soviet culture, thereby making an explicit parallel between Putin and Stalin,
which he amplifies later in the interview. He compares the situation in Crimea
to the following: “You invite an acquaintance to your home as a guest, you put
him in one of your bedrooms, and then he throws you out of the apartment.” Most
interesting to musicologists perhaps will be his praise of the musical
qualities of the Ukrainian hymn and his critical comments about the poor
musical tastes of the pro-Russian activists in Crimea and the Anti-Maidan
demonstrators: “Low, debased music only disgraces the image of Russia. In order
to conquer you must have culture.” But as the opening and closing ceremonies of
the Olympics in Sochi showed, the Russians are well versed in using “Kul’tura”
(with a capital K) as a weapon.
Peter Schmelz is Associate
Professor and chair of the Music Department at Washington University
in St. Louis.
<1>Sil’vestrov and Frumkis, Sil'vestrov and Tat'yana Frumkis, “Sokhranyat' dostoinstvo. . . ,” Sovetskaya muzïka, no. 4 (1990): 16.
<2>Quoted in Tatyana Frumkis, liner notes to Valentin Silvestrov, Symphony no. 5, Kitsch Music, etc. Musica Non Grata, BMG/Melodiya CD, 74321 49959 2 (1997), 3 (translation amended by me based on the original Russian in Sil’vestrov and Frumkis, “Sokhranyat' dostoinstvo. . . ,” 12).
<3> Silvestrov had previously set texts by Shevchenko in his Cantata for a cappella chorus (1977) as well as in the Quiet Songs (no. 5, “Proshchay, svite, proshchay, zemle!”).
<4> Quoted in Frumkis, “Eine lange Reise,” liner notes to Stille Lieder, ECM New Series CD, ECM 1898/99, 982 1424 (2004), 14.
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