Silent Songs Elene Gvritishvili & Alexey Pudinov

• Valentin Silvestrov (b. 1937):
• 1 Silvestrov: Song Can Tend the Ailing Spirit 03:28
• 2 Silvestrov: O Melancholy Time! 03:27
• 3 Silvestrov: Farewell, O World, O Earth 04:30
• 4 Silvestrov: Winter Journey 05:53
• 5 Silvestrov: The Isle 04:29
• 6 Silvestrov: Something Unspoken, Blue and Tender 05:27
• 7 Silvestrov: Autumn Song 04:55
• 8 Silvestrov: Swamps and Marshes 05:10
• 9 Silvestrov: Winter Evening 04:47
• 10 Silvestrov: When the Yellowing Cornfield Stirs 04:28
• 11 Silvestrov: I Set Out on the Road Alone 05:18
• 12 Silvestrov: Mountain Summits 03:44
• 13 Silvestrov: Elegy. Verses Composed at Night During a Time of Insomnia 03:13
• 14 Silvestrov: Ode. And Schubert in Water, and Mozart in Birdsongs 03:35
• 15 Silvestrov: Postlude. Recollection 02:52
• Total Runtime 01:05:16

Info for Silent Songs

Silent Songs - the fascinating collection of songs by the eminent Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov - enchants in a new, impressive interpretation with its incomparable atmosphere of silence. Elene Gvritishvili and Alexey Pudinov's selection of Silent Songs celebrates the subtle beauty of the music, the contemplative lyricism and the sound of their words.

Silvestrov once called his neo-romantic sounds, composed after 1974, "metaphorical music". In turn, he described his cycle of Silent Songs as "silence set to music". With the Silent Songs, he has created a musical song collection that invites the listener to experience the magic of music in its quietest and most intense form.

The initiator and pianist of this recording, Alexey Pudinov, found in the young Russian soprano Elene Gvritishvili (who herself has Ukrainian roots) a vocal partner who intones the Russian (and Ukrainian) verses as delicately and beautifully as only a native speaker can. Interpreted for the first time by a female vocalist, not only the voice and the piano are touching in a congenially realised tonal fusion, but also the linguistic melody of the Russian and Ukrainian poetry. Silvestrov himself once said about the genesis of his songs: "The sung words themselves become the melody. I read the poems, and out of the verses flowed the melodies that combined with the words."

The song collection includes settings of verses by Russian poets Pushkin, Lermontov, Baratynsky, Tyutchev, Yesenin, Mandelstam and Zhukovsky, Ukrainian poetry by Taras Shevchenko and Russian translations of poems by Keats and Shelley. Themes such as transience, memory and the search for inner peace are at the centre of the texts.

Elene Gvritishvili, soprano
Alexey Pudinov, piano

Elene Gvritishvili
is a graduate of the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory in St. Petersburg and currently a member of the renowned "Bolshoi Young Artist Programme". The young soprano has already successfully performed at the most important Russian stages, including the Bolshoi Theatre, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Cathedral Radio and the State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg as well as the Winter Theatre in Sochi. On European stages she has performed at the Salzburg Festspielhaus, the Mozarteum, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and the Paris Philharmonie.

Elene has a fruitful collaboration with conductor Teodor Currentzis: from 2020 to 2022 she worked as soloist of the musicAeterna choir under his direction and participated in performances of Requiem (Fauré), De temporum fine comoedia (Orff) and Dido and Aeneas (Purcell), among others.

With her love of modern music, Elene has participated in the world premieres of works by esteemed contemporary composers such as Philip Grange, Alexey Retinsky, Paul Archbold, Andreas Moustoukis and Alexander Manotskov. She also enjoys performing Renaissance and Baroque music and collaborating with ensembles dedicated to historical performance practice in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Alexey Pudinov
is a musical multi-talent. An irrepressible energy determines his music-making as well as his projects. For example, he founded "AD Festival Days", a chamber music festival in Manchester. He is also a co-founder of several chamber music ensembles, including the piano duo TWO4PIANO and the Frankfurt Piano Trio.

"I can't live without chamber music," he says. Nor without other forms of artistic expression. That's why the young pianist is also enthusiastic about photography in addition to music.

Alexey's versatility is also reflected in his education: with a total of six music degrees, the musician has combined the piano schools of three countries: Germany (HfMDK Frankfurt), England (RCM London and RNCM Manchester), and of course the legendary Russian piano school.

He has received important artistic impulses from Norma Fisher, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Herbert Seidel, Bernhard Wetz, Angelika Merkle, Leon Fleisher, Paul Schenly, Kelly-Marie Murphy and Jörg Widmann, among others, as well as in his role as soloist with orchestras such as the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Simfonični Orkester RTV Slovenija and the Gießen Symphony Orchestra. Alexey's chamber music partners include renowned musicians such as Lara Boschkor, Jonathan Crow, Benedict Klöckner, Johannes Moser, Konstantin Soukhovetski and the Eliot Quartet.

Alexey is a cosmopolitan who appreciates travelling and performs all over the world. He has performed at many prestigious festivals including Rheingau Music Festival, Pianofest in the Hamptons, Toronto Summer Music Festival and Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. Awards won at competitions have taken him to Canada, North America, Finland, Germany, Austria, Italy and the Czech Republic. Alexey Pudinov won the Gershwin Best Performance Prize in New York in 2015, the Steinway Prize in 2014, the First LMN Menuhin Prize in Frankfurt in 2016 and the First Prize at the North West International Ensemble Competition in Vancouver in 2018.

Booklet for Silent Songs