Ukranian music

This lunchtime the CBC made a live recording of chamber music by Ukranian composers. Five songs by Mykola Lysenko to start with, a "passionate advocate" of his national culture, so that the music sounded like folk songs. The Embroidered Scarf, The Sweetest Eyes, A Spinster's Plight, Dreams of Joy and I walked in the Meadow were each sung by the soprano Monica Whicher; there weren't many people present who could understand these Ukranian texts, although the tone and her gestures gave a few clues.

Then came a very different piece, a setting by Valentin Silvestrov of a text by Gennady Aigi. As the only Russian word I could understand was "kak", meaning "how" or "like", I can't really tell you what it was about, but it was entitled Forest Music, Monica Whicher now using the lower, softer part of her voice range with Jamie Parker at the piano, accompanied by solo horn played by Joan Watson (of the True North Brass ensemble) who from time to time blew through the mouthpiece without sounding a note, as if to represent a breath of wind moving through the trees. (I had the chance to take a look at the score after the concert which indicated exactly how long she should blow for.) At the end when the singer's voice had become quieter and quieter and finally ceased, the other instruments continued softly, the music scarcely moving and ending in complete silence. The singer had introduced this as a "modern, spare" piece dealing with the "a time of happiness ... a hoped-for lucidity ... joining the voices even of those who have become silent..." and after the break for applause, the Gryphon Trio's cellist, Jamie Parker, told us some more about this composer. He had been punished by the Soviet authorities for writing in too independent a style, effectively exiled in his "plain" little studio in a part of Kiev that was "not affluent", teaching at a Kindergarten by day and composing his "reflective, quiet music" by night. This way of life went on for twenty years. The 'cellist had actually been to visit him and his wife there, so knew what he was talking about. Apparently Silvestrov believes that there are no new sounds: "They've all been made." The concert's final piece was a Postlude: DSCH, the letters a reference to Shostakovich. "He was trying to capture the resonances Shostakovich left behind." In this one the singer joined the trio to sing a wordless part, the "Ah!" of her vocalise finally turning into a barely perceptible "A-men."

The Gryphon Trio also inserted a rendition of Epilogues by another Ukranian who had defied the Soviet regime, Yevhen Stankovych. This too was clearly influenced by the music of Shostakovich.