Jukka-Pekka Saraste, the conductor on this album, is a renowned conductor who actively champions contemporary Nordic music and has held positions with several major orchestras.
Performer Biography
The Lahti Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Osmo Vänskä, has become one of Europe's most notable orchestras, winning multiple awards for its recordings.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Silvestrov strikingly called his shift from edgy modernism to a new euphony an 'act of disarmament,' reflecting on the nature of the symphony as a genre.
Compositional Technique
Silvestrov's Fourth and Fifth Symphonies are dominated by the idea of cultural memory and a longing for a past beauty, both cast as single-movement structures.
Composer Biography
Valentin Silvestrov, the composer, has been the leading figure in Ukrainian music for about forty years, gaining international recognition since the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Historical Context
Silvestrov belongs to a generation of ex-Soviet composers, including Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Arvo Pärt, and Giya Kancheli, who explored previously forbidden stylistic directions against Soviet cultural hostility.
Composer's Artistic Vision
For Silvestrov, his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies are examples of symphonies composed after the 'death' of the symphony, with the Fifth even dubbed a 'post-symphony'.
