It is a dark and beautiful “Ballad” that opens this disc entitled “Modernism” with this work by Boris Lyatoshinsky (1895-1968), a composer little known on this side of the West but whose interpretation proposed here by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine under the direction of Bastien Stil can only captivate. Indeed, beyond the musical motifs expressing a certain fatality of destiny with an ostinato introduced from the first notes and which will not cease to arise regularly, the work crystallizes the astonishing effervescence in music and arts encountered since the October revolution and the opening towards modernity. This work, composed in 1929, a troubled period in the Soviet Union, betrays the doubts and questioning of the artist, like many of those undergoing the terrible Stalinist purges, as expressed a few years later by the poet Ossip Mandelstam, with the fatal outcome that we know. From this darkness emerges the luminous beauty of the violin, that of Sarah Nemtanu, a song both plaintive and surreptitiously suggesting some hopes, in vain…
The young French-Ukrainian pianist and composer Dimitri Tchesnokov (1982), whose Concerto for Violin and Orchestra op. 87 was chosen for this recording, will surprise and delight the music lover for his astonishing maturity. Integrating the heritage of his elders born under the Soviet regime, modernity finds once again new possibilities of expression in a subtle agreement between classicism and innovation. The violin under the bow of Sarah Nemtanu delivers in certain passages poignant soliloquies which allow the talented violinist to deploy all her virtuosity and sensitivity. Finally, the highlight of the evening is the inescapable Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and his Symphony No. 1, a youthful work that brought him immediate success in 1926. This work, seductive in its freshness, holds within it all the promise and audacity of its composer, one of the masters of his century. With this work, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine delivers a masterly performance, where each part seizes the originality of the symphony to offer flamboyance and lyricism, in counterpoint to the violin playing, which is by turns facetious and fascinating.