Could Stockhausen have pulled off a passable imitation of, say, Schubert, or Boulez a convincing copy of Beethoven? These are the kinds of questions that spring to mind when listening to the four compositions heard on Valentin Silvestrov’s ‘Forgotten Word I Wished to Say’.

Now in his late 80s, Silvestrov was associated with the European avant-garde scene during the 1960s, especially in his native Ukraine, but his music took a sharp turn towards tonality in the following decade. Written for solo piano in 1977, Kitsch-Musik’s five short pieces shift between Schumann’s Kinderszenen in the first, Chopin’s E minor Prelude Op 28 No 4 in the second and Massenet’s Méditation in the fourth, demonstrating the composer’s comment that ‘my music is an echo and response to what already exists’.

There are fewer traces of those echoes in the main work contained on the album: the song-cycle Stufen (‘Steps’). A more seeking, searching quality is heard throughout the 11 settings, perhaps reflecting the patchwork of poetic texts repurposed by Silvestrov for the cycle, from well-known Russian literary figures such as Pushkin, Tyutchev and Mandelstam to a translation of a John Keats poem. For example, ‘Letzte Liebe’, with its near quote at the end from Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, exudes a kind of bittersweet nostalgia reminiscent of Schumann’s Dichterliebe – vividly captured in soprano Viktoriia Vitrenko’s glowing sound – while the edgy opening song, ‘Widmung’, hints at angst-ridden late Wolf or early Schoenberg.

The two sets of piano pieces that conclude the album continue where Kitsch-Musik left off – harmonic gestures taken from the 19th-century piano book now combined with more folk-like melodic influences. Seasoned pianist Alexei Lubimov’s poised performances always bring clarity and balance to Silvestrov’s music, enabling this carefully crafted and proportioned post-tonal style to simply speak for itself.