International Classical Music Awards 2023
Nominated - Contemporary Music

Priska Eser, Jutta Neumann, Andreas Hirtreiter, Wolfgang Klose, Michael Mantaj, Andres Mustonen

Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Munich Radio Orchestra

Valentin Silvestrov is probably the best-known Ukrainian composer, and his "Requiem for Larissa", now released on CD by BR-KLASSIK, was written in response to the unexpected death in 1996 of his wife, the music and literature scholar Larissa Bondarenko. She had stood by his side from the very beginning of his artistic career. It was in 1999, shortly before the turn of the millennium, that Silvestrov was finally able to complete his Requiem. He did not set a drama of the Last Judgement to music, as Mozart, Berlioz or Verdi had done before him, but rather wrote a lament - in seemingly endless, world-forlorn repetitions. The composer stepped out of the present and into the past, commenting on his life with Larissa with memories of music that had inspired her, and with profound allusions, retrospections and epilogues of the most personal nature.

"One is reeled in like a fish on a line from the opening notes; the Munich players and singers under Mustonen spin from them the endless web of Silvestrov’s melody...This is a great work in a great recording." - Gramophone Magazine, November 2022.