Valentin Silvestrov talks to Moving Classics TV about the creation of his "Kitsch Music"

Описание: Kitsch music emerged out of the unusual situation. Although I composed before my „Silence Songs“. It was very favorable time for my creativity. The Silent songs were also unexpected and very innovative and avant-garde gesture. But not like a linear continuation but the backward continuation.

Kitsch music: The word „kitsch“ means weak and not „high art“. But there are situations in life when the so-called „weak“ music can be more powerful than the „high art style“ music. Robert Musil wrote an essay about the kitsch problem and he was describing the following situation. The soldiers at the front would be preparing for a big combat and the night before, they would be singing songs and thinking about their families and their lives. From the point of view of somebody who is not empathically involved, it would be just simple sentimental songs. Not the powerful „combat“ songs that might be expected.

But if the outsider is a part of this emotional experience, he or she would not even have time to think about evaluating this music. He or she would be so engrossed in singing these emotional songs. So there is a paradox. Simple and easy listening music can be more powerful and have a stronger emotional effect.

Back to „Kitsch“ music, music that is not accepted by the high art priests and is „rejected“. My kitsch music was a elegy to the simple and easy-listening tender music that was at those times (1977) rejected by the music world. This transparent, shimmering and hesitant music was considered to be „outdated“ and „old-fashioned“. So as a composer, I was not taken seriously and the music elite would not accept this music. Rejected music, yes, but rejected on a wrong presumption and wrongly rejected. When it was premiered, some audience members thought that I was joking or pulling a leg. But the fact is that those people were laughing and not taking those soldiers and their emotions seriously who would prefer to sing the easy sentimental songs in those dark hours of their lives. When listening to this music, besides the beauty, there is something tragic about it.

Think of the somnambulists who are walking on the edge of a roof of a high house. We are watching them at the distance and we are apprehensive that they can fall off the roof, but he or she is continuing with the steady walk, with tender steps.

This tenderness to walk on the edge of an abyss is more tragic than the explicit direct representation of a tragic scene. My kitsch music is all about the tragic tenderness. I can remember that at those times when i worked on my kitsch music, there were some difficult sad situations in my life. One of them was death of my close friend. It was not a direct response or a composition in memory of my friend, but it was so sudden and my pain was so strong that I could heal it with tender and caressing strokes.

When kitsch music is played with this in mind, there will be calmness and tenderness, but also calmness full of anxiety. It needs this particular quality.

I can remember that once Alexander Ljubimov was performing i"Kitsch music" in St. Petersburg. He did not want to follow my recommendations and preferred to play with „distancing“ feeling, he wanted more clarity, but I could persuade him. The effect on the audience was stunning. There was an extreme silence in the concert hall. This music was born in 1977 but it gave rise to new music in 2000s. I continued this trend in my bagatelles cycles. Kitsch music is the music of our memory. Not the memory of those who are dead, but the memory of a loss. The feeling of loss with the warm smile that good things existed. the feeling of loss and gratitude would describe my music. This is my subjective opinion about it; it is up to my listeners what they think about when they will hear this music.

Recorded at 23-Apr 2021 by Yar Godyna
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Photo: Anton Singurov