New Classics

Born in Moscow in 1940 in Moscow, Vyacheslav Artyomov is considered Russia’s greatest living composer. As a young man, he developed a profound interest in Russian folklore and traditional music of the East, as well as the works of Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Messiaen, Arthur Honegger, and the Polish avant-garde. Artyomov’s warm, expressive compositions reflect his interest in the archaic, Christian motifs and Eastern meditation. He prefers not to call his music ‘contemporary’, using instead a specific term for including it into the Tradition ‘musica perennis’ (eternal music). As he says, ‘music is the only way for the cognition of the sense of existence’.

Since the fall of the Soviet regime his deep, spiritual and brilliantly crafted music has travelled the world to great acclaim. His works are in the grand symphonic and post-Romantic traditions and he has been called ‘the Bruckner of the 21st century’. This is the ninth installment in Divine Art’s excellent series of releases featuring his music, including the ‘Threshold’ and ‘Gentle Emanation’ symphonies as well as his ‘Symphony of Elegies’.

This latest release features six works for varying chamber ensembles, and while embodying the composer’s overall wide ranging compositional style, spirituality and mysticism, the music expresses this in a more intimate, lyrical style than his massive symphonic works. ‘Scenes’ was originally written as a ballet score for a film which was banned by the Soviet authorities and never shown, so the work now stands in its own right as a ballet suite.

—John Pitt