Misterioso - Silvestrov/Part/Ustvolskaya

Lubimov's exploration for ECM of contemporary music from Eastern Europe continues with this fascinating disc featuring chamber works by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov and Galina Ustvolskaya, the most interesting and inventive of Shostakovich's protégés. An effective clarinet-piano arrangement of Arvo Pärt's popular, brief "Spiegel im Spiegel" separates the main events. Silvestrov's Misterioso is for solo clarinet with assistance from piano bass rumblings. Part nostalgia, part dark despair, it's a moving work that also serves as a test of the clarinet’s possibilities and the player's technical prowess. Post Scriptum is a sonata for violin and piano with an attractive melody that, as in much of Silvestrov's music, splinters and fades away. A pair of Ustvolskaya's early works is powerful, especially in such vivid performances and sonics. Her Trio is one of the finest chamber works of the past half-century, melodically seductive and harmonically adventurous. Her Violin Sonata has a reputation as a difficult piece, but in this lucid, expressive performance it, too, emerges as a major work. A disc to treasure. -- Dan Davis