Daniel Hope’s living room belongs to the family again after countless online concerts. The recordings are back in the studio and his new album is dedicated to a Ukrainian composer: Valentin Silvestrov, who turned 85 on 30 September. Music composed by Hope and her piano partner Alexey Botvinovit is very important, as Cornelia de Reese learned.
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Valentin Silvestrov’s music is dangerous. Dangerously ingratiating. Melancholy, he gnaws his ear and doesn’t let go. This music is trendy with its simplicity.
And then you catch yourself opening the drawer labeled “neo-classic”. And it is precisely here that this music does not belong, says Daniel Hope: “It would be wrong to ‘mark’ it as neoclassical. The neoclassical learned by composers like him, has adopted its principles. But with Silvestrov there is something else behind it: a journey long, very complex. Not only has his compositional ability increased, but it has also been a journey through his life, which has not been easy at all. He has always been something of a troublemaker in the Soviet Union music scene. “
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Who | I like it | What
title “New Year’s Eve”
With Daniel Hope, violin | Alexey Botvinov, Klavier
factories Valentin Silvestrov: Melodies of the Moments, Hommage an JSB, Pastorales 2020
Valentin Silvestrov comes from Kiev and fled to Berlin a few weeks ago at the age of nearly 85. At a memorial concert, in which Hope also played, he spontaneously took the stage and, after escaping on foot, spoke with bitterness and fury about the situation. In the midst of excitement he sat down at the piano. All waves of aggressive chords awaited in the hall. Yes, Hope reports: “… but then came a melody – you could almost describe it as a perfume. And suddenly a world opened up. It was salvation through music.”
Silvestrov had to spend his 85th birthday on September 30 in Berlin, in a new environment, away from his circle of friends in Kiev.
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Classical music festival in Odessa
Hope has had Silvestrov’s operas in his repertoire for a long time, which also began with his regular concert tours in Odessa, where pianist Alexey Botvinov invited him for many years. Hope immediately fell in love with this city, which “every violin knows”, says Hope, because all the greats have performed here and the Russian violin school was shaped from here.
With Botvinov, Hope exported the Odessa Classical Music Festival to other countries to continue the series.
These experiences are also reflected in their interaction. Botvinov has an exceptionally wide range of sounds and colors in the game, which, according to Hope, inspires him again and again. “What kind of tones and chords he conjures up, especially in his left hand. It’s amazing.”
The recordings were not easy for either of us. Especially for Botvinov, because at each interruption of the game he received messages from relatives, who told of the upcoming raids, of the losses. “Then he came back, we had to record again. And then those silent chords! I admired him a lot.”
The album “Silvestrov” had a starting point: “Pastorales 2020”, an opera that the composer had composed for her two years ago for Beethoven Year, but it was not performed. It refers to Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony. From the beginning he feels how Silvestrov works: he takes a moment, a theme of the whole symphony, which he quotes and then develops. Hope describes it as a kind of big bang: “And then you see how this matter flies into space, so to speak.”
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Absolute precision
It demands concentration and absolute precision from the musicians. The violinist and pianist sent him sample recordings and a two-page letter with corrections was immediately returned: slow down here, use more signs here, play a longer bow here. “We’ve been bombarded with information about music that just looking at it on paper seems simple. But it’s very complex. It’s something we really had to work on to feel free with such precision.”
Finding freedom within borders: there is no more precise way to compose the attitude towards life in the Soviet-Russian embrace.
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This struggle between composers or musicians and the Soviet regime is nothing new: it goes far, far back in time.
Russian tradition
Anyone who is irritated at first and is bothered by the homage to Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov – Russian composers do not want to exclude all three, because all three are in their tradition. “Also, in Rachmaninov’s biographies there is a classic exile who has also more or less escaped from a regime and has not returned. This struggle between composers or musicians and the Soviet regime is nothing new – it goes very, very far.”
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Let yourself fall into the depths of simple music
Silvestrov’s simple music has its depth, especially in this musical implementation. It’s getting closer and closer – dangerously sensitive and yet so incorruptible.
