MUSICAL SPOKESMAN FOR UKRAINE

Again in looking at one person, I find another. The article about the Ukrainian conductor Kirill Karabits (see previous Blog), led me to a composer I had never heard of. As the war in Ukraine continues, their artists and musicians continue to work in whatever capacity they can, often to help provide support for those behind the lines.

Among them is the renowned Ukrainian composer, VALENTIN SILVESTROV, who will be 87 in September. In the beginning, Valentin did not want to leave Kiev, but as the war progressed he and his daughter and granddaughter were forced to flee to Berlin on the night of March 8, 2022. Since every train was too packed to board, they were lucky, an acquaintance spied them and drove, via back roads, to the Polish border, where they caught a train to Germany. His grandson stayed behind as a volunteer with the war effort.

 His Prayer for the Ukraine, composed in 2014, is now seeing performances in concert halls around the world. This lovely piece can be heard on Youtube. Valentin Silvestrov is perhaps the most important living Ukrainian composer. His music is now performed worldwide as a symbol of unity and solidarity with the Ukrainian people.  and stillness. 

He is  known as a master of poetryn for his quiet, tranquil tones, both in chamber music and in works for larger orchestras, yet his compositions are both sensual and thoughtful.  "I do not write new music. My music is a response to and an echo of what already exists," Valentin has said.

In an interview with "Deutsche Welle", the usually quiet Ukrainian composer openly condems Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in the strongest terms, but not Russian culture. Rather, he considers Russian and Ukrainian music to be a part of European culture. Valentin sees his music as a response to totalitarianism and violence. It is sad that so many Russian artists across the world have been rejected due to the regime of one madman!

In 1974, under pressure to conform to both official precepts of socialist realism and fashionable modernism, and likewise to apologize for his walkout from a composers' meeting to protest the Soviet Union invasion of Czechoslovakia, Valentin chose to withdraw from the spotlight. In this period he began to reject his previously modernist style.

 Instead, he composed Quiet Songs (1977)) a cycle intended to be played in private. Later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, he also began to compose spiritual and religious works influenced by the style of Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox liturgical music.

  Some of his music, particularly the symphonies,  tended at times towards the tempestuous, yet much of his choral work is more in keeping with his chamber music, in that it displays the gentler, quieter side of his palette. This, as the composer has explained, is entirely intentional: ‘It’s no accident that the symbolic crown and ending of the Maidan 2014 cycle is a quiet lullaby. For I’m neither able nor willing to duplicate the noise of this terrible war. Instead, I want to show how fragile our civilization is.’

 Valentin laments how his stock has risen since the Russian onslaught. He's now the musical spokesperson for his homeland, and more people are hearing his music. Even at his age and in exile he is still composing.

The BBC’s Andrew McGregor said: “Like so much Silverstov, you don't have to know how or why it works to be deeply affected by it. It feels simple, yet it obviously isn't; it's profoundly beautiful, timeless, and unforgettable”. 

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