Silvestrov: Symphony No 5, Postludium / Robertson, Lubimov

Silvestrov’s Fifth Symphony might well have emerged from Prospero’s island. The music epitomises something rich and strange. Ominous, heavy with threat (trs. 3, 5), dissonant but accessible, dreamy and romantic. Ham-fisted and insensitive but useful parallels include Mahler’s Adagietto, Berg, Griffes’ Pleasure Dome, the film scores of John Barry and the Hollywood 1970s and further enlivened by idyllic evocations of birdsong. A massive orchestra is used and there is an orchestral piano presumably played by Lubimov who is at the centre of things in the similarly ecstatic Postludium. At one point there is a low-key chatter of voices – but very low. This is voluptuously expressive music given spine by the undertow of gloom. I do not know why it has not made more headway. If there were any justice this would have been played at the BBC Proms but the same could be said of a host of other regrettably neglected works including Hovhaness’s Majnun and Etchmiadzin symphonies, of the Benjamin Dale tone poem The Flowing Tide, of Ronald Stevenson’s concertos, the oratorios and symphony of Yuri Shaporin and the piano concertos of Nikolai Kapustin.

This Sony-Arkiv re-animation scores over the competition in various areas. Its sound is rich – bathed in warmth yet not smearing detail. Students of the work will find that the version under review is in nine tracks which certainly aids the process of getting to grips with a single span of three quarters of an hour. Even timid souls – and I count myself in their company – should make a point of hearing the remarkable Fifth Symphony. It is as much an ikon of the second half of the twentieth century as Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3 and the various mystic-religious works of Macmillan and Tavener. The difference is that the Silvestrov is sensuous to the point of saturation rather than devout to the point of asceticism.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International