Nanny locks me in a dark cupboard (Memories of Childhood)
1:32
6.
With the Doll (Nursery)
1:57
7.
Hobby Horse (Nursery)
3:24
YOUTHFUL YEARS
8.
Porte-enseigne Polka
3:02
9.
Desire
2:39
10.
Impromptu-passionné
2:34
11.
Many have grown from my tears
1:41
12.
Hopak of the Merry Young Ukrainians
1:51
13.
Night (1868)
4:16
MARRIAGE
14.
Hopak (1868)
3:12
15.
Oh, how your eyes look at me sometimes
2:37
16.
Oh, you drunken sot!
3:01
17.
Intermezzo in modo classico (1860)
3:34
18.
Trepak (Songs and Dances of Death)
5:02
LONELINESS
19.
Méditation (Album Leaf)
4:17
20.
The leaves rustled softly
3:41
21.
Cum mortuis in lingua mortua (Pictures at an Exhibition)
2:40
22.
Within Four Walls (Sunless)
1:33
23.
On the River (Sunless)
4:22
24.
Rêverie
5:12
Total time: 69:21
Recordings: October 2020, Pyrton, Oxfordshire (1,3,4,6,7,9,11, 13-16);
March 2021, Menuhin Hall, Surrey (2,5,8,10,12,17-24)
About
First Percy Grainger: Folk Music, then Edvard Grieg: Lyric Music, and now Modest Mussorgsky: Unorthodox Music – a logical sequence in soprano Claire Booth’s and pianist Christopher Glynn’s growing AVIE discography, interspersing a selection of under-represented songs with solo piano works by this most individual and idiosyncratic of all Russian composers.
Claire and Chris approach Modest Mussorgsky: Unorthodox Music in the spirit of a storyteller, tracing an arc of life from innocence to experience that is arranged across a prologue and four “scenes” – Nursery, Youthful Years, Marriage and Loneliness – taking their cue from the colourful tableaux of the composer’s operas.
Individual numbers from the great song cycles – Youthful Years, Nursery, Sunless, and Songs and Dances of Death – are juxtaposed with works from Mussorgsky’s more unorthodox output, all delivered by Claire and Chris with disarming affect.
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Reviews
“... a treasure trove of vivid storytelling through music " ****
The Irish Times
Editor's Choice
“What a breath of fresh air this album is …Booth brings incisive diction and bags of character to everything.”
Presto Music
“... it delivers for me at several levels … weaving an imaginative recital from surprising and delightful corners of Mussorgsky’s songs and piano pieces … a fine follow up to their Grainger and Grieg recitals.”
Record Review - BBC Radio Three
Choral & Song Choice
“A Mussorgsky melange full of surprises … David Nice enjoys [a] multi-faceted recital… vivid character… a picture-perfect presentation of both text and music… classy work all-round” ****
BBC Music magazine
“Operatic vividness and tremendous panache – A ‘cradle-to-grave songspiel’ describing the arc of a woman’s life is brilliantly conceived by soprano Booth and pianist Glynn… The whole thing is a joy” *****
The Guardian
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