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Customer reviews
Vasks' voice distinctive, profound, if hardly original. 
by .. David A. Hollingsworth (Washington, DC USA)
Whatever Vasks' works, on this disc at least, may lack in ultimate originality, they sure make up with the profundity in their expressions and articulation. The Second Symphony, a symphonic canvas of various moods, was completed just four years ago, in 1999. Peteris Vasks is quite a renowned composer in his own right, and who enjoys, after Janis Ivanovs during the last century, the status as Latvia's foremost composer, very much like Giya Kancheli of Georgia, Valentin Silvestrov of the Ukriane, and Arvo Part of Estonia. He composed the piece due to a joint commission by the BBC & the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (which premiered it during the 1999 Proms with Yakov Kreizberg conducting).
And Giya Kancheli props up at various points in these two works. The Second Symphony, for example, begins forcefully, yet with an underlying purpose (to essentially reflect those who suffered during the Twentieth Century). While the explosiveness of the beginning evokes Kancheli and even Shostakovich, the mood relaxes thereafter into something hymn-like in spirit yet reflectively so. The introspection is sort of a religious orthodoxy in characterization, and at 2'16", one can envision church gatherers singing a hymn remembering the beloved. This secondary idea, pensive yet spiritually absorbing, conveys something searching, that sense of longing, as though nostalgia becomes the feeling of the present (look at Allan Pettersson's music for instance, whose world is quite evoked also in the score). Kancheli's music again props up in this, and the ensuing passages show sharp contrast between the highly charged energy with menacing power and scope and the inner world of subtle introspection. Even contemporary composers like Vasks, Kancheli, Part, and even Silvestrov and Tan Dun are effective in reminding us that nostalgia is not a dirty work, but instead an healthy feeling of that sense of history that older generations tend to cling on to as daily lessons while the younger generations, at times, can take it too much for granted.
The scherzo-like passage, at say 21'15", can be nostalgic in mood. Only this time, however, the mood has this Sibelian playfulness about it (and Stravinsky's ballet "Petroushka" comes to mind in its naiveté). Yet the music is pastoral also, very much in the world not only of Sibelius, but also of Vaughan-Williams and fleetingly of Bax. And I'm particularly moved by how that pastoral landscape glows into something of Malcolm Arnold's/Waltonian flamboyant grandiousness before the sudden shift in mood at 25'16" (by then the dark reality sets in once again). The scenery becomes dramatic as if doom's impending. The use of the bells sounds ritualistic, as if there's a battle between good and evil (like in Nielsen's Fifth Symphony). But, listen to that work's sense of resolve at, say 31'03", with the woodwinds, xylophone, and muted stings symbolizing light at the end the tunnel of chaos and uncertainty. The beautiful melody sung by the cellos (then by full orchestra) have poignancy of long-struggled hope. That resolve is, however, short-lived, as emotional outbursts by 34'54" remind the listener that all is not over. But peace, in the final minutes, as well as eternity do prevail, even though the mood remains contemplative and ill at ease. The Symphony, if lacking in originality, have journey, that sense of experiencing much that life has to offer, and finding at least some of the answers that perhaps only history knows.
Vask's Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra "Distant Light" (1996-1997), is quite as liturgical and soul searching as the Symphony, and as Kancheli's "Mourned by the Wind" for cello and orchestra (1988) for that matter. The violin cadenzas are dazzling, yet there's something enthralling and nostalgic within. Even the tense moments of the piece evokes Pettersson's First Concerto for Strings. What I admire about John Storgards' performance as a violinist is his ability in making the violin cry out for things lost, but with extraordinary emotional impact and point (the cadenzas are done thrillingly, yet never short in depth and even in substance). The melancholy is heart-wrenching and Storgards plays the violin with a profound sense of that personal history being remembered. The Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra under Juha Kangas relish support of awesome subtlety and a compelling understanding of the psychology behind the work and its creator.
Whereas John Storgards is a true musician in the Concerto, he serves as an highly visionary conductor in the Symphony. I cannot find a single passage where there's a slack in his approach and his sympathy for this piece. Storgards sounds rewardingly empathetic, as does the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra. Leonard Bernstein once said, in one of Deutsche Grammophon Bernstein Edition commemorative CDs, that "I know when I have achieved a really good statement of a work: that is, when I have a feeling throughout that I am composing it on stage, at the event. If I think at the end 'What a fine piece I wrote,' then I can be reasonably certain that I have achieved a true and good document."
I think all involved in these performances on this disc can concur with Berstein highly humane statement. These performances sound and feel so empathetic that Vasks' musical, autobiographical documents is so much alive yet not so sojourned. Will I be able to say the same thing in a hopefully projected plans to record his First Symphony with the same insightful conductor and the Tampere Philharmonic?
I believe so.
Classical Music is Alive and Well by .. Ryan Morris (Chicago, IL)
This is a fantastic release and was introduction to both Vasks and, beside Rautavaara, modern music by living composers. I was thrilled to hear a composer who created things with an audience in mind. This is emotional, dramatic, thrilling, beautiful, and wonderfully orchestrated music. The second symphony seems is reminiscient of Shostakovich in some ways, mixed with the Rautavaara of [on the last frontier], and is slightly cinematic at times.
The Violin Concerto is a modern masterpiece. LIke the Bartok Piano Concerto 2, on the first several listen you barely realize that you are listening to a small scale string ensemble[just brass in the Bartok 2]-because the economy of his composition and ability to create unique sounds with just strings make think you are listening to bigger music than you actually are. The piece ends as it begins, coming into, then out of, silence and takes you on a masterful journey culminating in a ghostly waltz.
There are, at last count, five recordings of this work, even Hyperion recorded it. For a new composition, that is very special-I can only think of several other modern works that can claim that[Gorecki Sym3 comes to mind].
Now that I am familiar with Vasks, and if you enjoy this disc, I strongly recommend Lauda, ondines release of Symphony 3 and his wonderul Cello Concerto, and his disc of Choral music.
Highly Recomennded!
Walking where no-one has walked by .. M. Yarus (Boulder, CO United States)
Seeing what no-one has seen - there's something of that in the appeal of this first-rate CD. But the exellent, almost unheard of music, which twists through many moods and voicings is the real selling point. Storgards plays brilliantly in 'Distant Light' and the orchestral support is excellent. Sonics are full and deliver the frequency extremes. Anyone with the a detectable sympathy for 20th Century music would enjoy this disc.
Thematically Stirring, A Brilliant Program by .. o dubhthaigh (north rustico, pei, canada)
Peteris Vasks' recorded works stand alone in their power to evoke the mysticism of the spiritual loner. This tonal, Romantically inclined single movement symphony opens with a roar, like a beast let out of its cage only to reflect on what this newly wrought freedom portends. Like his heartbreaking chamber pieces, the music reflects inwardly. His is the work of a contemplative whose spiritual eruptions bring thought more so than joy.
John Storgards delivers this music with an unflinching eye toward the dialectics in the writing as well as in the message. The Tempere Philarmonic seems born to play this music. There is a going for it that you don't always hear in well executed overproduced pieces. This is analogous in avant garde music to King Crimson's mighty beast that can roar with frenetic energy in something like "Fractured", and then resolve all this dynamism in spiritual questions like "One Life." Nothing is resolved with this work: the progressions escalate and then leave the listener in free fall. Isn't spirituality just that. Much was always made of Kierkegaard's Leap of Faith. This is the music that accompanies the mendicant after the leap and before he has reached his safety, if in fact it exists.
Storgards returns to essay the Violin Concerto in the second piece of this remarkable program. Thematically complementary, it harkens to Vasks' remarkable "Message." The call and response of the Kangas' Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra heightens the drama.
Along with Rautavaara and Erki-Sven Tuur, the Scandanavian and Baltic movements in classical music have taken the directions in music of the late Twentieth Century and have sought to find a tonal refrain to the serialism, minimalism, free-jazz sensibilities that were championed. In dealing with the Soviet pessimism of Shostakovitch, the abstract detachment of Morton Feldman, these writers, like their countrymen caught in the middle, have sought to uncover the ground of Being, and there in find the human alive.
This is a stirring program start to finish. Masterfull and lyrical, human and profound, it is all we are when we stop for a moment and consider our place in the universe. Is that a distant light we see at the end of the tunnel of our lives, a new horizon, that first ray of a light that will reveal what is thinking, what is living.....
Confusion and search for gods ... this is rather profound music. by .. Pater Ecstaticus (Norway)
I don't expect to be of any help to the reader, (and I don't care one bit ;-) but anyhow, the following is what I have to say ...
There seems to be a truthfulness shining through in this music, a sense of mysticism, rooted in deeply religious/cultural/spiritual sensibilities that have been subdued (but never destroyed) by different regimes and socio-political upheavals over the centuries in Latvia (as in the rest of the Baltic states, which have always had profound indigenous religions of their own). These mystical-religious undercurrents seem to be feeding the deeply human core of this music, at the same time evoking the pain and sorrow of centuries of Modernity, of (world) war(s) and repression of indigenous - more mythically based - sensibilities, values and truths.
I would like to quote the profound words from the certain Lithuanian-American philosophical writer Vincent Vycinas, which in my view eminently capture what this music is trying to convey:
"By repeated inquiries into the meaning of man's way of being, [we] painstaikingly but persistently [try] to disclose his inner core and his way in his cultural world. [We do] this by repeatedly plunging into the event of Western philosophy with no intention to settle in any philosophical system, but with a tendency to protrude into the pre- or post-philosophical milieu. This milieu is mythical."
And, going on from there:
"Sometimes everything in a man's individual life or in the life of a society seems to run smoothly and with ease, but not for too long: very soon man or society experiences blows of destiny and is thrown around in confusion. Often this confusion is not of a superficial nature, affecting some secondary points in human life. A crisis frequently shakes up the very cornerstones of the cultural edifice. Digging himself out from the ruins of his fallen world, man, half buried in debries of his own creation, raises his head with the questions glaring in his eyes: who am I? What is the mission of my life? Which are the guiding criteria of my ways in my own world? What is my world? Lost and burdened with essential or principle problems man goes out looking firstly for unperishable powers of reality which would help him out from his entanglement in the confusion of perishable things or aims. After each of many crises in his world man steps out on the ways of a search for gods."