Lyatoshynsky: Romances For Low Voice & Piano / Savenko, Blok

$10.49
Label
Toccata
Release Date
May 28, 2013
Format
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    Featuring ⌄
    • COMPOSER
      BORYS LYATOSHYNSKY
    • PERFORMER
      Piano, Bass, Alexander Blok, Vassily Savenko
    Product Details ⌄
    • RELEASE DATE
      May 28, 2013
    • UPC
      5060113440532
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      TOCC0053
    • LABEL
      Toccata
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
      Vocal
    Works ⌄

    1. No. 1. After the Battle

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    2. No. 2. Death (At the Cemetery)

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    3. No. 3. An Old Song

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    4. No. 4. A Dirge

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    5. No. 5. I Dreamed: The Moon Shone Sadly

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    6. 3 Stikhotvoreniya P. Shelli (3 Poems of Shelley), Op. 14: No. 3. Good Night

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    7. Ozymandias, Op. 15

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    8. No. 1. Accursed Place

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    9. No. 2. The Tomb

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    10. No. 3. At the Crossroads

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    11. No. 1. On the Hills of Georgia

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    12. No. 2. Three Springs

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    13. No. 3. There on the Shore

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    14. The Sun

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    15. No. 1. Your Eyes are like the Sea

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    16. No. 3. Boundless Plain

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    17. No. 4. Why do you never laugh?

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    18. No. 5. Do not pass by so proudly my child

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    19. 2 Romances to Verses by Pervomaysky, Op. 32: No. 2. Recurring Dreams

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    20. No. 1. A Letter to Siberia

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    21. No. 2. Elegy

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    22. No. 1. The Star

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok

    23. No. 2. The Height of Happiness

      Composer: Boris Mikolayovich Lyatoshinsky

      Performer: Vassily Savenko, Alexander Blok


The music of the Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky (1895–1968) is familiar in his home country but sorely neglected abroad. Lyatoshynsky’s songs are neglected even there: this anthology of his best romantsiy for low voice and piano contains many first recordings.
The songs meld intense Scriabinesque expressionism with elements of Ukrainian folksong in a language that embraces both the lyrical and the dramatic. His setting of Shelley’s Ozymandias, with its warning of the impermanence of power, was a brave act in the Soviet Union of 1924. The booklet contains full sung texts, with English translations by Russian-music expert Anthony Phillips, who also provides an extensive introduction to Lyatoshynsky.

REVIEW:

Ukrainian composer Boris Liatoshinsky (1895–1968) studied with Gliere at the Kiev Conservatory and then became a life-long member of that faculty. Death, melancholy, dread, and grief over unrequited love are the subjects of his chosen texts by mostly Ukrainian poets Ivan Bunin, Alexei Pleshcheyev, Leonid Pervomaiski, Maxim Rylsky, and Volodymyr Sosyura as well as Heine and Shelley. The mood of his songs is consistently somber.

The program of works from 1922 to 1951 is ordered mostly chronologically. His earliest compositions show an evident love of Schumann, Chopin, and Borodin; but the works heard here show a Scriabinesque expressionist style that reflects the cultural chaos following WW I and the Russian Revolution. His 1924 setting of Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ with its image of the impermanence of power shows his courage and conviction in the face of Socialist Realism as Stalin was consolidating his stranglehold over the Soviet Union.

The performances here are broodingly powerful. Savenko’s lyric bass is a good fit for these songs, written specifically for bass (or low voice). With smooth legato singing and well applied dynamics, his performance gives full expression to their mournful nature.

-- American Record Guide