After the Silence

The 29-year-old German oboist Juri Vallentin constructed his Berlin Prize for Young Artists program around a climactic scene from Patrick Süskind’s novel Perfume, adding theatrical elements taken from our common experience of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program, titled “Inner Voices,” made Vallentin one of two winners of the competition, alongside cellist Valerie Fritz. 

Vallentin’s literal inner voice was heard in the program’s central work, “Cardiophonie” by Swiss composer Heinz Holliger. Vallentin’s heartbeat was amplified and served as a kind of metronome for the performance, his pulse increasing jaggedly as the virtuosity of the music took its corporeal toll; the work ended in a moment of self-destructive climax. In this, Holliger’s 1971 composition had a common element with the concert etude “Boulevard des Capucines,” by Gilles Silvestrini, where endless 32-note runs and circular breathing also pushed the performer to the limits of the physically possible. Vallentin’s dramaturgy blended theater with music old and new, combining styles into a cohesive whole. 

I met the oboist during a brief break in his busy schedule (he’d just come from a rehearsal for a children’s concert). Still, Vallentin seemed relaxed, talking to me about his pursuit of interaction with the audience, the artistic side of math, and why he’s never playing another competition.