Valentin Silvestrov: Maidan
ECM New Series

As 2023 arrives, attacks by Russia on Ukraine continue, just as they have since early last year. Along with the horrific physical devastation the country has suffered, many of its people have been killed or forced to seek refuge. Among the many affected is Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, who, in March 2022, accompanied by his daughter and granddaughter, left the city where he had been born in 1937 to settle indefinitely in Berlin. Like millions of others, Silvestrov is now a refugee hoping to one day return home.

All of which makes it impossible to listen to Maidan without the reality of such events resonating in the background—even if the performances by the Kyiv Chamber Choir under Mykola Hobdych's direction were recorded at St. Michael's Cathedral in Kyiv in 2016. It's not as if Silvestrov had somehow foresaw the invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine last February; instead, Maidan 2014, the four-cycle work that dominates this latest ECM release of the composer's music, was created in the wake of the ‘Euromaidan,' a wave of demonstrations that hit Ukraine in 2014 and thus constitutes Silvestrov's response to that historical moment. While he wrote the original versions of the cycle's songs on piano, accompanied by his own voice, the choral treatments, as noted by The New York Times, “transform his private anger and grief into a communal memorial, solemn and resolute.”

It's especially natural to hear the release's contents in light of the recent invasion when each of the four sub-cycles in Maidan 2014 begins with a variation of Ukraine's National Anthem and when the work includes hymnal settings such as “The Lord's Prayer,” “Elegy,” and “Prayer for Ukraine” with its words “God, protect the Ukraine / Give us power, faith and hope.” It's by design that the work concludes with an enchanting lullaby, as the now eighty-five-year-old composer clarifies in stating, “I'm neither able nor willing to duplicate the noise of this terrible war. Instead, I want to show how fragile our civilization is. I try, with my music, to safeguard and preserve a day of peace.” Yet while there is a generally lamenting tone to the work, anger and a desire for justice are conveyed by the words in “Lacrimosa”: “Full of tears will be that day / When from the ashes shall arise / The guilty man to be judged.”

It takes little time at all for the impact of the choir's pure voices to take effect when groups of male and female voices give resonant voice to the opening cycle's “National Anthem” and then intensify the haunting quality of “Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant” when only a few singers intone its supplicating text. Fifteen songs in total compose Maidan 2014, some pleading softly in accordance with their lyrics and others declaiming passionately. Particularly beautiful are “Agnus Dei” and the heavenly “Prayer for Ukraine.” As powerful as the music is when the full choir sings, a setting such as “The Lord's Prayer" is even more stirring when a single voice emerges from the ensemble to deliver the lead.

January 2023