This concert features three works: the world premiere of a specially-commissioned work by Valentin Silvestrov entitled Moments of Memory V, Rachmaninov’s Trio élégiaque No 1 in G minor, and Dvořák’s Piano Trio No 4 in E minor, Opus 90.
The contemporary Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov (1937-) is a freelance composer from Kiev who fled to Berlin following the Russian invasion of 2022. Two of Silvestrov’s sayings are: ‘I do not write new music. My music is a response to and an echo of what already exists,’ and ‘Music is still song, even if one cannot literally sing it.’ The second work in his Moments of Memory series is said to ‘allude to Chopin’ and to ‘yearn for an unreachable past.’ The third work, meanwhile, contains items with titles such as Serenade of Childhood and Elegy. (It would appear that this composer is fully engaged with the past.) The fifth work in his Moments of Memory series was co-commissioned by the Istanbul Music Festival, the Wonderfeel Festival, the Walden Festival, the Off The Beaten Path Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn and Odessa Classics. Before the performance on June 16, Mr Silvestrov will be presented with the 53rd Istanbul Music Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. The İKSV website tells us that his new work ‘goes beyond borders and brings Ukrainian and Russian music and musicians together in the hope for a peaceful world.’
Rachmaninov’s single-movement Trio élégiaque No 1 in G minor was written in 1892, when the composer was 18 years old. Like Tchaikovsky’s Trio in A minor, with which it has a number of similarities, this work concludes with a funeral march. Wikipedia tells us that ‘The elegiac theme is presented in the first part – Lento lugubre – by the piano.’ Yet more shades of the past!
Issue 67, December 2024
Beauty in the Wilderness
