Mussorgsky: Unorthodox Music
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MODES MUSSORGSKY
Mussorgsky: Unorthodox Music
Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)
[ AVIE / CD ]
Release Date: Friday 15 October 2021
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.
'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
"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" ★★★★ Choral & Song Choice, BBC Music magazine Christmas 2021
"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 3
"What a breath of fresh air this album is …Booth brings incisive diction and bags of character to everything." Editor's Choice, Presto Music
"The result is a treasure trove of vivid storytelling through music" ★★★★ The Irish Times
Tracks:
Prologue
1. The Billy Goat - A Society Tale (02:31)
Nursery
2. Nanny and I (Memories of Childhood) (01:16)
3. With Nanny (Nursery) (01:48)
4. In the Corner (Nursery) (01:39)
5. Nanny locks me in a dark cupboard (Memories of Childhood) (01:32)
6. With the Doll (Nursery) (01:57)
7. Hobby Horse (Nursery) (03:24)
Youthful Years
8. Porte-enseigne Polka (03:02)
9. Desire (02:39)
10. Impromptu-passioné (02:34)
11. Many have grown from my tears (01:41)
12. Hopak of the Merry Young Ukrainians (from the opera Sorochintsky Fair) (01:51)
13. Night (04:16)
Marriage
14. Hopak (03:12)
15. Oh, how your eyes look at me sometimes (02:37)
16. Oh, you drunken sot! (03:01)
17. Intermezzo in modo classico (03:34)
18. Trepak (Songs and Dances of Death) (05:02)
Loneliness
19. Méditation (Album Leaf) (04:17)
20. The leaves rustled softly (03:41)
21. Cum mortuis in lingua mortua (Pictures at an Exhibition) (02:40)
22. Within four walls (Sunless) (01:33)
23. On the River (Sunless) (04:22)
24. Rêverie (05:12)
