Updates from the world's leading classical music label
Valentin Silvestrov was forced to leave his native Ukraine after the Russian invasion of 2022. His music has a prescient quality that unerringly seems to express the fate of his homeland. Raymond Bisha introduces the world premiere recordings of his intimate Violin Concerto and the heartfelt, single-span Eighth Symphony. Notable for their economy of expression Read More …
In 1980, I sat in the Kyiv Opera House enjoying a performance of Verdi’s Il trovatore as one of a handful of British music teachers permitted entry into the USSR under an educational exchange scheme. I understand that the building now no longer exists, and that it didn’t die of natural causes. During that same Read More …
Borrowing other people’s music and weaving it into your own composition is far from uncommon. We’re not talking plagiarism here i.e. passing other people’s music off as your own, which seems to happen far more regularly in pop music than in classical. A composer might borrow from himself, which explains why you might get a Read More …