Gidon Kremer, violin

Anna Magdalena Kokits, piano

Chamber Orchestra “Kremerata Baltica”

Programmme: B. Bartoks 5.kwartet, ”Shubert meets Silvestrov" 

Music Note “Schubert meets Silvestrov” 

“ The idea was born in a recent conversation between me and Valentin Silvestrov - a prominent Ukrainian composer, who in 2017 celebrated his 80th birthday.

I Have played a lot of his music, feeling that Silvestrov's scores are masterpieces of tonality in our world very much oriented (except some important composers, who use “minimalist” technics - be it Arvo Paert, Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, etc.) towards post “twelve tone” and electronic music complexity.

V.Silvestrov after having experimented in his youth with all kind of composing technics, in his late works reminds us of the beauty tonality can have. He explores its “roots” in an unexpected way linking his statements to the best heritage of Romanticism but never falls into the trap of “clichés”. Valentin rather spins his individual voice around the samples left by romantic composers.

It was Silvestrov, who dedicated his "Five pieces for violin and piano" to me already many years ago but only now I felt the urge to play them in a Kremerata Baltica program dedicated mainly to works by Schubert.

It seemed to me, that it would be the easiest to ask a composer - as I did often in the past - to arrange pieces for violin and string orchestra. But I must admit - I was wrong. Valentin didn’t accept my request, he came up with a more interesting idea, which I was happy to follow.

He suggested what I call “building bridges” - to mix some Schubert music with these pieces one by one.

After giving some thoughts and trying to imagine different combinations, I came up with the decision to build Valentin's pieces into the “structure” of F.Schubert's Sonatina in a-minor (instrumented for violin and strings by M.Tsynman). 

The meeting of two romantics is now meant to happen on the "virtual bridges” of two scores and I do hope it will be a refreshing experience for us players, as well as for our audiences. Why? Because it seems Schubert and Silvestrov speak the same language of beauty despite the fact that Schubert lived centuries ago and Valentin is well and still very creative.” 

-Gidon Kremer