Hymn for Strings

• Silvestrov composed this piece in 2001. It premiered on April 15, 2001 in Kiev, in a performance by the Kiev Camerata, directed by Valeri Matjuchin.¹
• Silvestrov dedicated this piece to Georgian composer Giya Kancheli.²

“My hymn is enveloped in silence although it appears like a customary string setting on the outside. The paradox of Cage’s (‘4:33’) is also present in latent form, but this is the ‘silence of new music’. All melodic content from my other compositions can also be found here. A rest does not only constitute a lack of sound, but is also a state of retardation and paralysis or a suspension of time. In early music, there was an occasional need for silence, but here it is a fundamental feature.”

Valentin Silvestrov³

1. “Hymn (2001),” Schott Music, accessed April 7, 2022, https://en.schott-music.com/shop/hymne-2001-no227666.html.
2. Valentin Silvestrov, Hymne – 2001 (Mainz: M.P. Belaieff, 2007), 3.
3. “Hymn (2001),” Schott Music, accessed April 7, 2022, https://en.schott-music.com/shop/hymne-2001-no227666.html.