Germany, Russia, Ukraine. Postludes and dialogues
23. Apr. 2023, 17:45 Uhr @ Woelfl-HausThe program of the composer and pianist Alexey Chernov "Germany, Russia, Ukraine. Postludes and Dialogues" presents compositions by the great Germans Beethoven and Wagner, Russian composers Scriabin and Rachmaninov (the musical world has been celebrating their 150th anniversaries in recent years), which will be performed in juxtaposition and dialogue with the music of the outstanding contemporary Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. The program includes the last, 32nd sonata, op. 111 by Beethoven, a Liszt transcription of Wagner's Isoldes Liebestod, piano miniatures by Scriabin and Rachmaninoff, as well as a number of bagatelles by Valentin Silvestrov, including parts of the piano cycle op. 306, dedicated to Alexey Chernov in 2021. The concert will be accompanied by the performer's commentaries.
The great German culture has a huge tradition that has sprouted in modern music. What Beethoven did is still relevant and finds an echo in the work of contemporary authors. One of these authors is the outstanding Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. He picked up and continued the musical genre invented by Beethoven - piano bagatelles. Now this genre is the main one in the piano work of Valentin Silvestrov. Silvestrov often talks about his "bagatelle style" as a musical philosophy of capturing beautiful moments and has been working in this genre for the past 20 years. Now, being in Berlin, in a forced separation from his homeland, Silvestrov continues to write musical miniatures. Silvestrov's bagatelles, just like Beethoven's, have big variability. He identifies subgenres, one of them being Pastoral and Postlude. The author interprets the pastoral as something like lost paradise sound, and Postlude as a reaction to something gone and as a cycle of time - past and future. Many of Silvestrov's Postludes are written in C major. Here, too, there is a parallel with Beethoven, his Arietta from the last piano sonata (op. 111) is also written in C major and a certain contemplation of paradise is also heard in it. Arietta's music can sort of flow smoothly into Silvestrov's Postlude two centuries later. In the same way, the romanticism of Wagner's music flows into the lyrical contemplation of beautiful moments in Silvestrov's music.
The Russian composers Scriabin and Rachmaninov worked a lot in the piano miniature genre. The dialogue of miniatures created 100 years ago and earlier sounds very interesting in comparison with the miniatures composed by Valentin Silvestrov in our time (including 2022). It's very interesting to combine a suite-dialogue from different pieces by Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Silvestrov: a dialogue of times and a dialogue of two countries - Russia and Ukraine.