HOMMAGE À J. S. B., FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO (QUASI ECO)

Valentin Vasilievich Silvestrov
(b. Kiev, Ukraine, September 30, 1937)

Composed 2009; 6 minutes

In the opening Andantino of his Homage to J.S.B, the violin echoes figurations from what might be the Bach Chaconne while the piano, marked ‘synchronously’ in the score, reinforces the implied harmony of each fragment. In a second Andantino, which follows without break, the chords are broken chords in a fragmented sequence of notes. Following again without break, the closing Andante opens as a gentle lullaby, almost like Brahms at times, with a resonantly echoing final reflection on the opening Andantino, which ultimately evaporates into silence. “Music is not a philosophy,” Silvestrov says, “but a song sung by the world about itself, a sort of a musical testimony of existence.”

Exiled since March 2022 to Berlin, after 84 years living in Kyiv, “a refugee from bombs and missiles,” Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov continues to fight for his country with blunt words and “quiet, cautious music.“ “Cherish this quiet, cherish this peace,” he says. His Majdan cycle of hymns, elegies and prayers dates back to the initially peaceful 2013-14 Kyiv street protests which led to the Revolution of Dignity and the ousting of President Yanukovich. Recently, he has written more Elegies. Now 85 and a winner of the Shevchenko National Prize, his country’s highest award for an artist, Silvestrov has distilled a creative dialogue with composers from the Western musical past as diverse as Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Mahler, Wagner and Glinka. “I do not write new music,” Silvestrov says, “my music is a response to and an echo of what already exists.”