A RUSSIAN ROMANCE
RUSSIAN ROMANCE - This CD presents a harmonious combination of vocal and instrumental works and rewards the listener with a fascinating series of first-class works by Russian composers offering prime examples of the immense spectrum of Russian vocal lyricism.
Russian romantic songs provide an inexhaustible source of poetic figures and wonderful melodies. A romantic song fills us with excitement, makes the heart beat faster and plucks the finest and most sonorous strings of the soul. All major Russian composers have occupied themselves with this genre and the tradition of the classical romance can even be observed in the works of Soviet artists.
Songs by Alexandra Pachmutova depict the finest nuances of human emotions. How young we were [1] is the monologue of a mature person. An expectant upsurge triggers off the luxurious indulgence of recollection: this “How young we were!” possesses undertones of regret and bitterness, but also the certainty that the path chosen was the right one. The lyrical first person embarks on the search for the “forgotten melody of love” in Pachmutova’s song You are my Melody [11]: profound reflexion, grief and disappointment is communicated in the broad cantilena, but also the passionate attempt to recapture what has been lost. “Do not hurry” [9] by Arno Babajanian and Yevgeny Yevtushenko is a further monologue on the subject of love. Lyrical romantic songs have an affinity with local homeland songs. “Evening Song” by Vassili Solovjev-Sedoj is an elegy addressed to an entire city depicted as vividly and sympathetically as a friend. Konstantin Orbeljan’s lied The Rustling of the Birches [2] characterises a bright landscape irrevocably linked to the love “of our good soil”. One of the most attractive homeland songs is Russian Fields [13] by Yan Frenkel and Ina Hoff. It is now several decades since this song was included in the film The New Adventures of the Elusive Avengers, but the force of this declaration of love to one’s native country remains undiminished. Joie de vivre and the simultaneous farewell to life form the subject of the Cossack song Life’s good, brothers, life’s good! [4] sung by a Cossack soldier mortally wounded in battle. The captain’s roll call before and after the battle lends the song heightened expressive power. The captain’s exclamation is full of distress when he realises that one of his men has fallen. A further historical episode is depicted in the scene from the opera Khovanshchina [The Khovansky Affair] [8] by Modest Mussorgsky. The Streltzy Guard (personal guards of Peter the Great), have heard that Peter’s troops are advancing and hurry to the residence of their captain, Prince Khovansky. The desperation of helpless individuals is expressed in the mournful motif of the chorus (“Father, father, come to us”). The Strelzy Guard requests the Prince to lead them in battle, but Khovansky orders them to go home. All that can now be done is to pray: “Lord, protect us from our foes”; this chorale has a similarity to a lamentation for a funeral. The orchestral medley [3] is also dedicated to the music of Mussorgsky. Daybreak on the Moskva (the overture to the opera Khovanshchina) opens with a melody in the tone of a solemn folk tune – one of the symbols of Russian music. This is followed by the flight of the fairy tale witch Baba Jaga, a movement from the cycle Pictures at an Exhibition, and the medley ends in a triumphal culmination with a further movement from this work: the majestic and powerful Great Gate of Kiev. Favourite episodes from classical Russian works are brought to life in an instrumental medley [7] beginning with a lively folk dance in Carneval from Peter Tchaikovsky’s Seasons. This is contrasted by the menacing themes of the feud between the Montagues and Capulets from Sergey Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo und Juliet. The medley enchants the listener who becomes impatient to find out what is coming next; the music continues with spirited dances for the men and yearning oriental melodies originating from Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and the medley is brought to a close with impetuous motifs in the major key from the overture to Michael Glinka’s opera Ruslan and Ludmila, a fitting conclusion to this musical pot-pourri. The orchestral works are the veritable jewels of this CD with the magnificent Variations on the Ukrainian Song Beyond the Don River (also known as A Cossack once rode across the Danube river) and an arrangement of the immemorial waltz Autumn Dreams. This waltz almost becomes a sort of leitmotif for the whole CD, recurring in several tracks [7, 12 and 14]. This waltz was in fact composed by an Englishman, Archibald Joyce, but has been transformed into a genuine Russian work with its sad and almost melancholy atmosphere. The recording concludes with the pot pourri A Russian Romance [14] containing a wealth of popular melodies beginning with Vasily Agapkin’s Farewell of Slavianka, a legendary march composed during the Balkan Wars in 1912. This is followed by songs from the 1930s: Song of the Plains by Lev Knipper and Katjuscha by Matvei Blanter. The tender melody and unaffected text of Vassili Solovjev-Sedoj’s song Moscow Nights sheds a very special light on the enigmatic Russian soul. The song Black Eyes and the concluding romance The Long Road are pervaded by passion and gypsy adventure. This CD presents a harmonious combination of vocal and instrumental works and rewards the listener with a fascinating series of first-class works by Russian composers offering prime examples of the immense spectrum of Russian vocal lyricism.
Natalia Plotnikova (Moscow State Conservatory)
