Contrasts 29. PULSE-MARATHON / Duo Sonoro

It’s not the first time that Duo Sonoro programs combine complete opposites. This time, the duo’s program is an original and comprehensive look at the music of the second half of the twentieth century. What were Ukraine, Hungary, Japan, Estonia, and Poland like in those years, and how were they heard by the composers whose names later became symbols of these countries?

The concert will begin with Volodymyr Zahortsev’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, written before his first hiatus. It is an artifact of the musical search of the Kyiv avant-garde, to which Valentyn Silvestrov also belonged, but the program includes his works written decades later, with the meditative and melodic characteristic of the composer, as well as pieces by the lesser-performed Yurii Ishchenko, who also focused on melody, but in his case it becomes a lively, unrestrained voice that has absorbed intonations from the steppes of the Kherson region to the forests of the Carpathians. 

The program “Duo Sonoro” takes us from the mountains of Ukraine to the mountains of Japan, to Toru Takemitsu, whose title translates to “From the distant land of chrysanthemums and November fog,” whose contemplative moods will be followed by György Kurtág’s Three Pieces for Violin and Piano and Erkki Sven Tüür’s Transformation. The concert will conclude with a sudden return to the avant-garde – Subito by Witold Lutosławski.

Artists:

“Duo Sonoro”

• Andrii Pavlov, violin 

• Valeriia Shulha, piano 

Program:

• Volodymyr Zahortsev (1944-2010). Sonata for violin and piano (1964)
• György Kurtág (*1926, HU). “Tre pezzi” for violin and piano (1979)
• Valentyn Silvestrov (*1937). “Hommage á J.S.B.” for violin and piano quasi echo (2009)
• Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996, JP). “From far beyond chrysanthemums and November fog” for violin and piano (1983)
• Yurii Ishchenko (1938-2021) Five pieces for solo violin (1974)
• Erkki Sven Tuur (*1959, EE). “Conversio for violin and piano (1994)
• Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994, PL). “Subito” for violin and piano (1992)

Moderator is Polina Kordovska