Posts Tagged ‘vasks’
Whatever Vasks’ works, on this disc at least, may lack in ultimate originality, they sure make up with the profundity in their expressions and articulation. The Second Symphony, a symphonic canvas of various moods, was completed just four years ago, in 1999. Peteris Vasks is quite a renowned composer in his own right, and who enjoys, after Janis Ivanovs during the last century, the status as Latvia’s foremost composer, very much like Giya Kancheli of Georgia, Valentin Silvestrov of the Ukriane, and Arvo Part of Estonia. He composed the piece due to a joint commission by the BBC & the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (which premiered it during the 1999 Proms with Yakov Kreizberg conducting).
And Giya Kancheli props up at various points in these two works. The Second Symphony, for example, begins forcefully, yet with an underlying purpose (to essentially reflect those who suffered during the Twentieth Century). While the explosiveness of the beginning evokes Kancheli and even Shostakovich, the mood relaxes thereafter into something hymn-like in spirit yet reflectively so. The introspection is sort of a religious orthodoxy in characterization, and at 2′16″, one can envision church gatherers singing a hymn remembering the beloved. This secondary idea, pensive yet spiritually absorbing, conveys something searching, that sense of longing, as though nostalgia becomes the feeling of the present (look at Allan Pettersson’s music for instance, whose world is quite evoked also in the score). Kancheli’s music again props up in this, and the ensuing passages show sharp contrast between the highly charged energy with menacing power and scope and the inner world of subtle introspection. Even contemporary composers like Vasks, Kancheli, Part, and even Silvestrov and Tan Dun are effective in reminding us that nostalgia is not a dirty work, but instead an healthy feeling of that sense of history that older generations tend to cling on to as daily lessons while the younger generation
Vasks P Symphony No | bcmushrooms