Silvestrov’s Fifth
Symphony might well have emerged from Prospero’s island. The
music epitomises something rich and strange. Ominous,
heavy with threat (trs. 3, 5), dissonant but accessible, dreamy
and romantic. Ham-fisted and insensitive but useful parallels
include Mahler’s Adagietto, Berg, Griffes’ Pleasure
Dome, the film scores of John Barry and the Hollywood 1970s
and further enlivened by idyllic evocations of birdsong. A massive
orchestra is used and there is an orchestral piano presumably
played by Lubimov who is at the centre of things in the similarly
ecstatic Postludium. At one point there is a low-key
chatter of voices – but very low. This is voluptuously expressive
music given spine by the undertow of gloom. I do not know why
it has not made more headway. If there were any justice this
would have been played at the BBC Proms but the same could be
said of a host of other regrettably neglected works including
Hovhaness’s Majnun and Etchmiadzin symphonies,
of the Benjamin Dale tone poem The Flowing Tide, of
Ronald Stevenson’s concertos, the oratorios and symphony of
Yuri Shaporin and the piano concertos of Nikolai Kapustin.
This Sony-Arkiv
re-animation scores over the competition in various areas. Its
sound is rich – bathed in warmth yet not smearing detail. Students
of the work will find that the version under review is in nine
tracks which certainly aids the process of getting to grips
with a single span of three quarters of an hour.
ArkivCD now provide
notes. The tracks and titles are listed. There’s a matte-finish
scan of the front of the original booklet plus the back jewel
case insert.
As usual with ArkivCD’s
revivals the price is low at $14.99 per disc.
On the other hand
there is competition which you can safely choose from on the
basis of repertoire. The Sony is the most luminous-sounding
recording but neither the deleted BMG
Kofman - the first champion of the work in Kiev - nor the current
Megadisc
by Borejko are anything less than very fine. The key thing is
that even timid souls – and I count myself in their company
– should make a point of hearing the remarkable Fifth Symphony.
It is as much an ikon of the second half of the twentieth century
as Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3 and the various mystic-religious
works of Macmillan and Tavener. The difference is that the Silvestrov
is sensuous to the point of saturation rather than devout to
the point of asceticism.
Rob Barnett
Alexei Lubimov (piano)
[65:08]
