November 11-17, 2004

music

suitespot

Peter Burwasser on Classical

by Peter Burwasser

A generation of young American composers has emerged who blithely reach backward for inspiration. Their primary muse is late Romanticism, but there are also plenty of pop-music references. In Eastern Europe, especially in the Slavic world, composers are looking at the past as well, but the sources are less distinct and often mysterious. In the case of Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, there is a timeless quality in the music, an overt concession to the proposition that nothing is really new. The new ECM New Series release of a 1986 Moscow recital of his "Silent Songs" is an extraordinary example of this special art.

"Silent Songs" is a setting of a number of poets, mostly Russian (Pushkin, Lermontov, Mandelstam), but also Keats and Shelley. Silvestrov's technical tour de force is that the entire two-hour cycle is meant to be performed sotto voce, in soft voice. Sergey Yakovenko, the baritone in this recording, delivers a wonderfully husky, richly layered tonality, in music that seems to range from medieval chant to Russian art song (especially Mussorgsky) and on to a dreamy contemporary consciousness. This song recital is unlike any other I have ever heard and truly mesmerizing. I was reminded of the magical late music of Morton Feldman. In both cases, you need to set some time aside and be prepared for a different kind of listening experience that is decidedly uncasual. The rewards are uniquely rewarding, musical chicken soup to nourish your soul.

Another ECM New Series release offers music that is not so intensely drawn is Chants, Hymns and Dances, featuring music by Gurdjieff and Tsabropoulos for cello and piano. As with the Silvestrov, though, there is little sense of specific style, but rather, a well-organized collection of stylistic allusions. Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff was born in the Caucasus in 1877, a child of the ethnic whirl of the Ottoman Empire. In the early 20th century, he was as much a polyglot philosopher as he was a musician. On this recording, his very simple-sounding constructions are given life by the eloquent cello playing of Anja Lechner, as accompanied by Vassilis Tsabropoulos at the piano, whose own music, which is also spare in expression, is included.

As with all ECM New Series releases, these two collections cast a spell as a result of meticulous overall production values. ECM recordings are famously lifelike; Chants, Hymns and Dances puts the musicians in your living room. Spend some time with them.