Mysterious Or Mystical ?

Misterioso is the title given to one of those typical ECM New Series disks of contemporary Eastern European chamber music. It features various combinations of a trio of performers comprising Alexei Lubimov on piano, Alexander Trostiansky on violin and clarinettist Kyrill Rybakov. The disk follows a nice symmetry, beginning and ending with sonatas for violin and piano and by Valentin Silvestrov and Galina Ustvolskaya respectively with three pieces in the middle of the disk featuring various combinations including clarinet. After Silvestrov's opening sonata which has the title Post Scriptum is another piece by him, the title piece of the disk Misterioso. This is a work for one player, Rybakov, who has to play both clarinet and piano, sometimes consecutively but at other times in tandem. A virtuosic feat but one can't help wondering about the point when a pianist is on hand to perform. Maybe the idea is to get one single perspective on the work. Both Silvestrov pieces inhabit the same kind of introspective meditative world that is epitomised by the third work on the disk, Arvo Part's familiar Spiegel Im Spiegel but here played in it's less familar version for clarinet and piano. Preceding the final violin and piano sonata by Ustvolskaya is a trio for clarinet, violin and piano. Ustvolskaya's sound world is spikier and more pessimistic perhaps but still fits the spiritual nature of the rest of the programme. All three players devote themselves scrupulously to this low key but demanding repertoire, demanding of discipline as much as technique.