Lines Written during a Sleepless Night: The Russian Connection
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Label: Chandos
Cat No: CHAN20153
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Vocal/Choral
Release Date: 3rd January 2020
Contents
Works
The Poet's Echo, op.76Songs (6), op.48
Goethe-Lieder (9), op.6
Songs (5), op.37
Artists
Louise Alder (soprano)Joseph Middleton (piano)
Works
The Poet's Echo, op.76Songs (6), op.48
Goethe-Lieder (9), op.6
Songs (5), op.37
Artists
Louise Alder (soprano)Joseph Middleton (piano)
About
Sound/Video
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1Rachmaninoff: Six Songs, Op. 38. 1. In my Garden at Night
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2Rachmaninoff: Six Songs, Op. 38. 2. To Her
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3Rachmaninoff: Six Songs, Op. 38. 3. Daisies
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4Rachmaninoff: Six Songs, Op. 38. 4. The Rat-catcher
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5Rachmaninoff: Six Songs, Op. 38. 5. The Dream
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6Rachmaninoff: Six Songs, Op. 38. 6. A-u!
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7Sibelius: Varen flyktar hastigt, Op. 13 No. 4
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8Sibelius: Sav, sav, susa, Op. 36. No. 4
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9Sibelius: Flickan kom ifran sin alsklings mote, Op. 37 No. 5
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10Sibelius: Var det en drom?, Op. 37 No. 4
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11Grieg: Seks Sange, Op. 48. 1. Gruss
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12Grieg: Seks Sange, Op. 48. 2. Dereinst, Gedanke mein
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13Grieg: Seks Sange, Op. 48. 3. Lauf der Welt
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14Grieg: Seks Sange, Op. 48. 4. Die verschwiegene Nachtigall
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15Grieg: Seks Sange, Op. 48. 5. Zur Rosenzeit
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16Grieg: Seks Sange, Op. 48. 6. Ein Traum
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17Tchaikovsky: Six Mélodies, Op. 65. 1. Sérénade
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18Tchaikovsky: Six Mélodies, Op. 65. 2. Déception
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19Tchaikovsky: Six Mélodies, Op. 65. 3. Sérénade
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20Tchaikovsky: Six Mélodies, Op. 65. 4. Qu'importe que l'hiver
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21Tchaikovsky: Six Mélodies, Op. 65. 5. Les Larmes
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22Tchaikovsky: Six Mélodies, Op. 65. 6. Rondel
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23Medtner: Mailied, Op. 6 No. 2
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24Medtner: Meeresstille, Op. 15 No. 7
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25Britten: The Poet's Echo, Op. 76. 1. Echo
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26Britten: The Poet's Echo, Op. 76. 2. My heart, I fancied it...
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27Britten: The Poet's Echo, Op. 76. 3. Angel
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28Britten: The Poet's Echo, Op. 76. 4. The Nightingale and...
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29Britten: The Poet's Echo, Op. 76. 5. Epigram
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30Britten: The Poet's Echo, Op. 76. 6. Lines written during...
Europadisc Review
We start in Russia with Rachmaninov’s glorious Six Songs, op.38 (1916), singer and pianist working together in perfect harmony in music that is as demanding for the accompanist as it is for the soloist. Right from the outset, the multi-lingual Alder and the ever-attentive Middleton put their stamp on this set, immediately inhabiting the expressive world of each song, from the chromatic melancholy of ‘At night in my Garden’, through the gentle spikiness of ‘The rat catcher’ to the wistful reverie of ‘Dream’. There’s a slavic full-bloodedness to the singing here, but tempered by Alder’s fabulously focused tone, and it makes for a particularly engaging account of the set.
From Russia we move to Finland and Sibelius, with four songs written around the turn of the century at a time when he was working on his First and Second Symphonies. The juxtaposition with Rachmaninov points up fascinating parallels in their respective late-Romantic soundworlds. Pick of the bunch here are the magically-textured ‘Säv, säv, susa’ (op.36 no.4) and the magnificent ‘Flickan kom ifrån sin älsklings möte’ (op.37 no.5, aka ‘The Tryst’), but all receive magnificent, expressively immersive performances.
Grieg’s Six Songs, op.48 (1894-98), all to German texts, take us further back chronologically, the gentle folk-like world of the opening songs giving way to greater introspection in the closing three, and Alder is once again excellent at highlighting the changes of mood while preserving the set’s overall integrity. From Grieg in German to Tchaikovsky in French - the Six Mélodies, op.65 (1888) - and again parallels are obvious, both in the overarching lyrical feel, and in the expressive range, from gentle good-humour to exquisitely poised inwardness. Alder and Middlteon work together beautifully in capturing the delicacy of tone and radiance of textures.
Next up are two songs by the Russian emigré of German ancestry, Nikolai Medtner, who, like Louise Alder’s forebears, ended up settling in Britain. The two Goethe settings included here, ‘Mailied’ and ‘Meeresstille’, date from around 1905, and the latter is surprising for its harmonic radicality from a composer with such a conservative reputation: Alder does it full justice in a performance of rapt intensity and superb dynamic control.
And so, by a rather circuitous route, we arrive in Britain, with Benjamin Britten’s remarkable song-cycle The Poet’s Echo, op.76 (1965). This haunting set of six Pushkin settings was the result of Britten’s close friendship with cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, and bears the inscription ‘For Galya and Slava’. It was a brave move of Britten, who was not a Russian speaker, to set texts by the Russian Shakespeare in the original language, but it pays off wonderfully in a set that, more than any of the others here, has the feeling of a true song-cycle. And, thanks to Alder and Middleton it receives the modern recording it deserves, idiomatic in its word-pointing, emotionally raw in intensity, musically intelligent and all the while hugely committed. Fans of Alder, one of the most impressive sopranos to emerge in recent years, will already have some idea of what to expect. For those who haven’t already heard her solo recital work, this deeply personal disc is a marvellous place to start, showing her versatility, her extraordinary tonal prowess and her gift for compelling programming to excellent advantage.
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