String quartet-mates Bogdana Pivnenko, Taras Yaropud, Kateryna Suprun, and Yurii Pogoretskyi join forces with pianist Iryna Starodub to bring some of Ukraine's most brilliant twentieth-century music...

String quartet-mates Bogdana Pivnenko, Taras Yaropud, Kateryna Suprun, and Yurii Pogoretskyi join forces with pianist Iryna Starodub to bring some of Ukraine's most brilliant twentieth-century music to the world.

Boris Lyatoshynsky was a leading member of a new generation of Ukrainian composers that emerged in the 1920s. His expansively conceived Ukrainian Quintet finds him at his most emotionally overt, with a heartfelt Lento e tranquillo second movement. Dedicated to Lyatoshynsky, Valentin Silvestrov’s Piano Quintet dates from the start of his Modernist odyssey of the 1960s, while Victoria Poleva’s withdrawn and secretive Simurgh-quintet is part of a style that embraces spiritual themes and musical simplicity, referred to as sacred (or 'holy') minimalism in the West.

REVIEW:

Violinist Bogdana Pivnenko and her team make a strong case for the Poleva's Simurgh-quintet, showing great sensitivity, yet also enough dynamic range to create a sense of momentum towards the ending. The pioneering nature of this disc will hopefully encourage more exploration of this repertoire.

-- Gramophone