Postcards from Ukraine, Volume Two: Chamber Music
The first album of Postcards from Ukraine gave a potted history of Ukrainian music in the form of a series of miniatures for piano and violin. In this second instalment four representative chamber works demonstrate how quickly music in Ukraine developed its own identity – although all four composers here had to contend with repression by the authoritarian regime to the north. One of them, Vasyl Barvinsky, even spent ten years in the Gulag, with his manuscripts destroyed by the Soviet authorities. Upon his release, unbowed, he set about reconstructing those lost scores, though he died before he could complete the task. His glorious A minor Piano Trio gives an indication of what was nearly lost – and how much remains to be discovered.
Markiyan Melnychenko, violin
Josephine Vains, cello
Peter de Jager, piano
Stewart Kelly, piano
Viktor Kosenko
Violin Sonata, Op. 18 (1927) (18:19)
- I. Allegro (10:48)
- II. Andantino semplice (7:31)
Borys Lyatoshynsky
Violin Sonata, Op. 19 (1926) (21:14)
- I. Allegro impetuoso – Tempo precedente – (8:02)
- II. Sostenuto e tranquillo (7:52)
- III. Allegro molto risoluto (5:20)
Yevhen Stankovych
Two Pieces for Violin and Cello (1972)* (6:35)
- No. 1, Molto andante, molto piano (4:58)
- No. 2, Presto (1:37)
Vasyl Barvinsky
Piano Trio No 1 in A Minor (1910) (26:57)
- I. Andante sentimentale – Allegro energico (12:08)
- II. Andante (6:52)
- III. Allegro giocoso (alla Kolomyika) (7:57)
*First Recording
MusicWeb International :
‘The first volume in this series offered violin miniatures and this second presents a chamber music perspective on Ukrainian music and thus longer, more involved pieces from a quartet of significant composers, from Vasyl Barvinsky (b.1888) to Yevhen Stankovych (b.1942), still alive at the time of writing. […]
As usual with this label, documentation is admirably full and just as admirably laid out on the page. The performers, led by Markiyan Melnychenko, play with sensitivity and have been well recorded. I’m looking forward to volume 3.
—Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International
American Record Guide :
‘Viktor Kosenko (1896–1938) wrote his two movement violin sonata in 1927 in a late romantic style. It is good music, and the violin playing is lovely. Hints of modernism appear in II. Boris Liatoshinsky (1895–1968) wrote his 3-movement sonata in 1926, and it comes from a more troubled, expressionist world. […] Their inner turmoil is unbearable. The music is deep and poignant, and the performers execute it with skill and understanding. […]
[Barvinsky’s trio] has emotional depth. Achingly romantic themes seek after not only love, but beauty. II has some of the loveliest playing in the strings one will hear. III is warm and optimistic, not the greatest in its dramatic narrative, but the commitment of the performers is such that they pull the life out of it. The writing is of a very high quality, and rare in its ability to grab the heart with longing and wistfulness for some other place and time.’
—Ned Kellenberger, American Record Guide