The career of the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov goes back to the days of suppression of modernist styles by Soviet authorities. He has been underexposed in the West compared with other Eastern European composers working in accessible idioms. This may be because he is not readily classifiable or marketable among the minimalists or among the neo-Romantics, but instead has forged an individual language drawing on both, as well as on Slavic sources. This collection of a cappella choral pieces from the 1990s and 2000s ...
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The career of the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov goes back to the days of suppression of modernist styles by Soviet authorities. He has been underexposed in the West compared with other Eastern European composers working in accessible idioms. This may be because he is not readily classifiable or marketable among the minimalists or among the neo-Romantics, but instead has forged an individual language drawing on both, as well as on Slavic sources. This collection of a cappella choral pieces from the 1990s and 2000s is a good introduction to his rather inward late style. Silvestrov may write hypertonal music if it fits the text (such as the Ave Maria, which appears twice in this set of mostly sacred pieces), refer to Rachmaninov's sacred music, or employ static textures as needed. His palette has subtle shades such as the distinction between chant and song in the Two Sacred Chants and Two Sacred Songs, both from 2006; the songs, naturally enough, have a more purely melodic idiom. But his pieces...
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