*****A rising talent offers eye-opening Prokofiev very impressively


PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 6. SILVESTROV Quiet Music  Dmitry Matvienko, cond; Aarhus SO  OUR RECORDINGS 8.226936 (50:54)

In the throes of World War II, Prokofiev and Shostakovich were evacuated to safety far from the battlefront, and now, 80 years later, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has forced the country’s most famous composer, the elderly Valentin Silvestrov, to seek exile and safety in Berlin. The unusually reflective program notes to this new release that pairs Prokofiev and Silvestrov muse about the cyclical nature of evil, going on to treat the two composers as predictors of catastrophe. Otherwise, the juxtaposition “seems like an odd match: one [composer] cultivated a harsh, expressive musical language, while the other was a proponent of introspective soundscapes.”
The booklet contains many related speculations, some of them provided by the Belarus-born conductor Dmitry Matvienko, now in his mid-thirties, who seems to be personally and culturally aware of the music beyond his years, an awareness reflected in two strikingly successful performances. Dating from 1947, Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony expresses his postwar ambivalence: “Now we enjoy the victory we have achieved, but each of us has our own unhealed wounds: one has lost loved ones, another has lost his health… This should not be forgotten.” From a composer prone to turning an ironic angle to the world, this is unusually heartfelt.
Does the same apply to the Sixth Symphony? Matvienko feels that the question can’t be settled; the music carries the possibility of irony, even mockery, sitting cheek to jowl with menace and lyrical beauty. Matvienko’s reading has the subtlety and alertness to convey each aspect in a satisfying, highly musical, and absorbing way. This is his first recording with the Aarhus Symphony of Denmark, which Matvienko has headed as chief conductor since the start of the 2024 season. The ASO has 65 permanent members, listing a somewhat reduced string body of 14-13-9-7-5. In exchange for a less lustrous string sonority, there is added prominence of Prokofiev’s brass and woodwind writing, which is performed with real character.
Matvienko is so attuned to Prokofiev’s idiom that I was reminded of two Prokofiev specialists half a generation older, Vladimir Jurowski and Vasily Petrenko. During his training in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Matvienko came to the notice of both and has enjoyed their support; he has served, for example, as Jurowski’s assistant at the Bavarian State Opera. The nimble imagination he exhibits here is very close to Petrenko’s style, it is interesting to make comparison’s with Petrenko’s first-rate Prokofiev Sixth with the Oslo Philharmonic (LAWO, 2021).
Mahler is mentioned frequently as a major influence on Shostakovich but almost never on Prokofiev, yet the existential shriek that opens the Laroe of the Sixth Symphony has much the same effect as the cosmic dissonance that tears the fabric of the opening Adagio of the Mahler Tenth. Matvienko renders it with more raw fierceness than Petrenko, and he elides it into a kind of panicked breathing suitable to emotional upheaval. This is only one detail that leads me to speculate that Matvienko might be on the verge of a major career. That he ahs guest conducted the major orchestras associated with Petrenko and Jurowski feels significant; his artist bio lists only one American appearance, with the Atlanta Symphony.
In the Vivace finale Petrenko underlines the music’s refined humor while Matvienko is out to dramatize the movement’s disparity between light and dark, he makes even the rollicking first theme convey a hint of approaching disturbance. What Matvienko shares with Petrenko is the ability to impart vivid character to each shifting mood; I’d even say he comes out ahead. For an ending, Prokofiev repeats the misterioso theme from the first movement, tapering off into nervous trepidation, leading to two existential screams in the manner of the Largo. The program notes suggest that these are musical images of the two atom bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 at the same time Prokofiev was working on the symphony. Short of that surmise, they are shattering expressions worthy of Mahler.
Preceding Silvestrov’s string orchestra suite, Quiet Music from 2002, the booklet offers a revealing quote from the composer to an interviewer: “I am so tired of the noise of this world.” The words encapsulate Silvestrov’s about-face from the avant garde to the simplicity he has now cultivated for a half century. This was more than a personal conversion—Silvestrov developed a theory about “metamusic,” a kind of universal language underlying all cultures, in keeping with another memorable quote: “Only melody makes music eternal.” Taking around 10 minutes, the three movements of Quiet Music are descriptive of its gentle, swaying mood: “Waltz of the Moment, “Evening Serenade,” ‘Moments of the Serenade.” Matvienko describes this as music to be listened to privately for consolation, and his sensitive performance follows suit.
This release successfully immerses us in history, tragedy, hope, and solace, adding an extra dimension to some captivating music-making. Huntley Dent