Reykjavík Midsummer Music 2013
Post Scriptum
Norðurljós
20 June, 20.30
Valentin Silvestrov
Post Scriptum (1991)
Mauricio Kagel
Ludwig van (1969)
Mauricio Kagel
MM 51 (1976)
Camille Saint-Saëns
String Quartet No. 2 (1918)
Mauricio Kagel bends time in a curious work for piano and metronome and evokes Beethoven's ghost in one of the most unusual homage pieces of later years. We hear Silvestrov's nostalgic epilogue and Saint-Saëns' second string quartet, a work composed at the end of the first world war when the composer was in his eighties, a work which at times sounds like Beethoven or even Haydn.
With our advanced artistic awareness, fewer and fewer texts are possible which, figuratively speaking, begin 'at the beginning' … What this means is not the end of music as art, but the end of music, an end in which it can linger for a long time. It is very much in the area of the coda that immense life is possible.
—Valentin Silvestrov
Performed by Bryndís Halla Gylfadóttir, Sigrún Eðvaldsdóttir, Una Sveinbjarnardóttir, Víkingur Heiðar Ólafsson, Þórunn Ósk Marinósdóttir.