Valentyn Silvestrov is the best-known living Ukrainian composer. He traveled from the radical avant-garde of the 1960s (dodecaphony, aleatoric technique) to a unique “metaphorical” language in his late period — the music of silence, resonance, postludes.
Best-known works: Seventh Symphony (2003), Requiem for Larissa (in memory of his wife, 1999), Quiet Songs (song cycles on verses by Shevchenko, Tyutchev, Pushkin, Mandelshtam), and Postludes for piano. His music is a dialogue with the classical tradition through the lens of contemporary experience. After February 24, 2022, Silvestrov had to leave Kyiv; in exile in Berlin he writes new bagatelles that sound like a quiet lament for his homeland. Today thousands of young Ukrainian composers consider Silvestrov their spiritual guide.
