Release Date: 10 January 2001
Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313533220
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: TCHAIKOVSKY
Description
Pyotr ll'yich Tchaikovsky wrote over a hundred songs, a rich repertoire that non-Russian singers have generally been tempted to avoid, concentrating attention if any, on a very small number of them. He seems to have tried his hand at this form of composition at a very early age. As a four-year-old he sets the words Our mama in St Petersburg, a collaboration with his older sister, Sasha. There were a few other attempts at song-writing during Tchaikovsky's period as a student at the School of Jurisprudence, but it was not until 1869, once his formal musical training at the St Petersburg Conservatory had been completed and he had taken up his position on the staff of the parallel institution in Moscow, that he turned his attention to the first published collection of songs, Opus 6. There were settings of verses by contemporary Russian writers, with three translations of German poems. These last, Opus 6, Nos. 2, 5 and 6, are based on original poems by Moritz Hartmann, Henrich Heine and Goethe. The first of these, Not a word, O my friend, laments the happiness that has gone, Heine's poem Warum sind dann die Rosen so Blas? (Why then are the roses so faded?) is again melancholy in mood, while the final song, a setting of a Russian version of Goethe's song for the gypsy waif Mignon, from his Wilhelm Meister novel, is among the best known of all Tchaikovsky's songs. Known in English as None but the lonely heart, this translates the Russian version of Goethe's Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt (Only you who know what yearning is),a poem set by many other composers, from Beethoven and Schubert onwards.1874 and the early months of 1875 brought a further collection of six songs, forming Opus 25. The first of the set, Reconciliation, is a setting of an original Russian poem by Shcherbina, while the fourth, by Lev Mey, has the Sultana Zuleika in conversation with her caged bird, both of them trapped and desiring freedom. This poem allows Tchaikovsky to indulge in orientalism, to suggest the exotic scene. The ready market for songs allowed Tchaikovsky to continue, in early 1875, with a further collection of six, to be published, as before, by Jurgenson. Opus 27 ends with another setting of verse by Mey, based on the work of the Polish patriot Mickiewicz, whose poems proved such an inspiration to Chopin. My spoilt darling is in the form of a Polish mazurka, verging on a waltz, as the singer yearns to kiss his beloved and kiss again.A further set of six romances was put together in the same year, to be issued as Opus 28. The third of these, Why did I dream of you?, sets a poem by Mey, developing its material from a single theme to convey the lover's anguish. The fourth song, He loved me so much, has words attributed to Tchaikovsky's friend Alexey Apukhtin and the group ends with The fearful minute, with words by the composer expressing the pain of a lover as he awaits the answer of the beloved. I should like in single word, a setting of a version by Mey of Heine's Ich w
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Muller:Rhenish Po
Kungsbacka Trio
Hkpo:Kojian
