Songs and Duos

Five of Maxim Shalygin’s favourite musicians come together for a concert with two song cycles and five duos. Pieces spanning sixteen years will be performed as an antidote to a new music scene that focuses mainly on world premieres. For his duos, Maxim Shalygin has chosen classical combinations, but with an adventurous spirit, breaking new ground.

Songs of Holy Fools are intimate songs on the edge of silence, for which Shalygin has set his own poems alongside texts by Ossip Mandelstam and Fyodor Dostoevsky. From the Grape of Wine is an ode to the Persian poet Omar Khayyam. In Duet for violin and piano, he explores extremes of dynamics and tempo changes. In Dolcissima, he juxtaposes two different musical styles that eventually merge seamlessly. Pure magic. Kaya is a moving tribute to his newborn daughter. Angel is a homage to Ravel. With his Six Bagatelles, which demand the utmost from the two violinists, Shalygin surprises with the agility of his imagination.

A programme of exciting listening experiences that will leave no listener unmoved.

“Creativity is an unconscious act of insanity, in a burst of which the truth is born. No matter how beautiful or disgusting it may seem to people far from madness, its value is beyond doubt, both for the author and for those able to sense its invisible beauty. After all, gratitude for endless trials and suffering brings joy and blissful emptiness …”

Maxim Shalygin