Silvestrov

Valentin Silvestrov’s childhood in Kyiv was blighted by the horrors of war. Eighty years on, those horrors have returned, and the acclaimed Ukrainian composer has been forced to take refuge in Berlin. Daniel Hope and Alexey Botvinov, a native of Odesa, channel their heartfelt reflections on Silvestrov’s plight and Ukraine’s suffering into this album of Silvestrov’s hauntingly beautiful music for violin and piano. The duo include three of the composer’s seven Melodies of the Moments cycles, exquisitely crafted songs without words touched by gentle echoes of the past, and the grittier emotions of the Bach-inspired Hommage à J.S.B.. Their world premiere recording of Pastorales 2020, written to mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, strikes the ideal balance of bittersweet expression, while Botvinov’s intense communion with Nostalghia captures a nation’s grief.