Meditation

Meditation for violoncello and orchestra was premiered on 10 June 1976 with the Kiev Chamber Orchestra and Valentin Potapov as soloist under the baton of Igor Blazhkov. The composer did not interpret the term “meditation” in the “Eastern” sense fashionable in the 1960s and 1970s, but in the traditional “Western” sense, as a “synonym” for a symbolically integrated sonata form that also strives for unity. The initial impulse and harmonic core of the entire work is the interval of a perfect fifth (d – a), which clearly recalls the opening of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

As a whole, the arch form of this composition is based less on the structural principles of development and conflict than on the separate unfolding of three thematic spheres, all of which are based on free dodecaphony, pointillism, and sonority in connection with modal and (a)tonal harmonic writing. In her article, “Valentin Silvestrov’s Lyrical Universe”, Svetlana Savenko described these three spheres as “the individual, natural, and cultural musical elements”. The first sphere is found in the solo cello part, which is not treated as in a concerto but – like the viola in Berlioz’s Harold in Italy – functions as the protagonist of the orchestra. The second sphere is found in the quasi-folkloristic shepherd’s tunes of the horn and the modal parallelism in the strings, which is in the spirit of medieval organum. The third sphere takes place in the “classical” solos of the harpsichord.

As in Silvestrov’s avant-garde compositions, the material clearly delineated by pitches is permeated by aleatoric “illuminations” or “flashes of lightning” (indicated as such in the score). They grow steadily and seem to burn up everything on their way to the climax of the catastrophe (marked fff). Then the lights on the stage suddenly go out and the conductor and the members of the orchestra begin to light matches. As in Drama, where this effect was first used, the transition from sound to gesture depicts the drama and tragedy of music itself, which through the multiplicity of “languages” has lost its ability to “speak”. The cello part recedes to a hissing whisper as out of its dark and flickering accompaniment a “forgotten” harpsichord solo emerges. We hear a simple melody in the spirit of Mozart, surrounded by a garland of parallel triads; this, too, gradually falls silent…
Shockingly unexpected, then, is the powerful river of sound from the bells that frees the orchestra from its mute silence, and the stage lights which are now turned on again are blindingly bright. These are the signs of the approaching catharsis, the reconciliation, the “leading to equality” that is the goal of a “meditation”. After all the thematic elements have sounded again, they dissolve gradually in the endless farewell of the coda.

Tatjana Frumkis