Silvestrov was drawn to the idea of the bagatelle even earlier as we will hear tonight. The bagatelle distils his thoughts to their most aphoristic and has become a favorite vehicle since the early years of the present century. Few are published, but most are grouped into cycles of between two to ten pieces, structured with other cycles into super-cycles of over 30 hours of music, every nuance painstakingly notated with the utmost precision.

2005)Įxiled since March 2022 in Berlin, a “refugee from bombs and missiles,“ Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov continues to fight for his country with blunt words and “quiet, cautious music.“ “Cherish this quiet, cherish this peace,” he says. His Majdan cycle of hymns, elegies, and prayers dates back to the initially peaceful 2013-14 Kyiv street protests which led to the Revolution of Dignity and the ousting of President Yanukovich. Recently, he has written more Elegies. Now 85 and a winner of the Shevchenko National Prize, his country’s highest award for an artist, Silvestrov has distilled a creative dialogue with composers from the Western musical past as diverse as Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Mahler, Wagner, and Glinka. “I do not write new music,” Silvestrov says. “My music is a response to and an echo of what already exists.” “Music rouses memory through non-rational means and each of the pieces here is evocative of distinct features inspiring such contemplation: transparent textures, nostalgic, melancholic moods, cyclical structures. The works are simple, or rather there is a simplicity to them it is, in a sense, immaterial music. It serves to conjure atmospheres of fragile reflection, a mirage of what was-or what could have been. I think of the works as a sequence of crystalline miniatures capturing time.”īorn in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 30, 1937īagatelle: Allegretto, Op. HEALTH AND SAFETY: Masks are no longer required for indoor performances but are strongly recommended.

Photography and recording of any kind are not permitted. Please be considerate of others and turn off all phones, pagers, and watch alarms. 2 (c1834)ĬLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918): Clair de lune from Suite bergamasque, L. 1 (1890)ĮRIK SATIE (1866-1925): En y regardant à deux fois from Danses de travers (1897), from Pièces froidesĬLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918): La plus que lente, L.

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