Polina Osetinskaya & Ilya Hoffman - Sergey Akhunov: Sketches (2016) FLAC

Art tends to elude direct expression.

Or, rather those ideas appealing to artistic language are scarcely ever plain and direct. Therefrom a musical statement grows metaphorical.

Yet what elements – language and style – are inherent to this statement? And what integral challenges emerge for the artist and interpreter?

At first we take a metaphor as somewhat complex, deliberately ambiguous, however, when the statement engenders new degrees of comprehension the metaphor takes root, appearing conventional and natural – similar to a math proposition, proven and evolved into a world-renowned theorem…

Then a new rank metaphors stems from the previously established layer… Presumably, the artist may again face the alternative? Whether to plunge into the metaphorical language evolution? Or withdraw to supposedly well-known tools yet creating a completely new context?

The author, indubitably, opts for the latter.

Ultimately, his music remains unprotected and particularly susceptible to the performance. The slightest interpretation inaccuracy may invoke a spurious association thus frustrate the statement’s metaphoricity…

I hope our efforts succeeded to reveal author’s conception in its modern rendition where archaisms along with contemporary expression and avant-garde ideas give birth to a new dramaturgy. ~ Ilya Hoffman