The Arts Desk (UK)

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6, Silvestrov: Quiet Music Aarhus Symphony Orchestra/Dmitry Matvienko (OUR Recordings)
Neeme Järvi’s spectacular 1985 performance with the Scottish National Orchestra put Prokofiev’s 6th Symphony on the map, this dark, brooding work formerly a real rarity. That Chandos disc still sounds impressive, easily outshining later recordings from the likes of Ashkenazy and Litton. This new account is the first I’ve heard with a bite and punch to match Järvi’s, Dmitry Matvienko getting his Aarhus Symphony Orchestra to play out of their skins. Sample the symphony’s stark opening, the brass notes stinging, the strings delivering a lacerating response 45 seconds in. Matvienko sensibly keeps things moving, the transitions between the three thematic groups deftly managed, as with the mechanistic third theme’s sudden shift into the 6/8 development section. It’s both exciting and terrifying, the music’s tragic collapse devastating. Few passages in the orchestral repertoire are quite so bleak, the horns seemingly gasping for breath before the second subject returns. And fascinating to compare the movement’s soft E flat major resolution with the very end of the finale, the same chord revisited as a brutal kick in the teeth. The opening of the “Largo” is hair-raising (is this the loudest opening to a symphonic slow movement?), principal trumpet Jeppe Lindberg nailing the twisty main theme. Prokofiev wrongfoots us with a jaunty start to his finale, though the jollity soon dissipates. Matvienko compares the two “catastrophic explosions” in the symphony’s coda to the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the orchestral response a huge scream of protest. This is one of the great 20th century symphonies, and this performance left me reeling. It’s that good and stunningly engineered to boot.
Veteran Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov’s 2002 triptych Quiet Music makes for an intriguing coupling. Listening to these three short pieces is akin to gazing through a misted-up window, Silvestrov’s nostalgic late style as disconcerting as it is beautiful. Matvienko draws some exquisite, muted colours from his players. This is the most exciting, emotionally charged disc of orchestral music I’ve heard so far this year: investigate forthwith. Graham Dixon