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7 PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840–1893) NE POY, KRASAVITSA, PRI MNE op. 4/4 4:41 1 Do not sing to me, my beauty · Sing mir nicht, meine Schöne NET, TOL’KO TOT, KTO ZNAL op. 6/6 3:04 Text: Aleksandr Pushkin None But the Lonely Heart · Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt 8 Text: Lev Mey, after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe O, NE GRUSTI PO MNE! op. 14/8 2:53 2 Oh, do not mourn me! · Ach, klagt nicht um mich NOCH’ op. 73/2 3:32 Text: Aleksey Apukhtin Night · Nacht Text: Daniil Rathaus 3 OTAR TAKTAKISHVILI (1924–1989) PRIMERENYE op. 25/1 4:57 9 Reconciliation · Versöhnung MZEO TIBATVIS 3:21 Text: Nikolay Shcherbina Sun of Haying Month · Sonne des Heumonds Text: Galaktion Tabidze SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873–1943) 4 DITYA, KAK TSVETOK TY PREKRASNA op. 8/2 1:48 FRANCESCO PAOLO TOSTI (1846–1916) · Child, you are beautiful as a flower Du bist wie eine Blume 0 NON T’AMO PIÙ 4:59 Text: Aleksey Pleshcheyev, after Heinrich Heine I don’t love you anymore · Ich liebe dich nicht mehr 5 POLYUBILA YA op. 8/4 1:48 Text: Carmelo Errico · I fell in love Ich habe mich verliebt - IDEALE 3:27 Text: Aleksey Pleshcheyev, after Taras Shevchenko Perfection · Ideal 6 ZDES’ KHOROSHO op. 21/7 1:46 Text: Carmelo Errico How fair this spot · Wie schön ist dieser Ort = TRISTEZZA 3:29 Text: Glafira Galina Sadness · Traurigkeit Text: Riccardo Mazzola HENRI DUPARC (1848–1933) q ÉLÉGIE 2:46 Elegy · Elegie Text: French translation of a poem by Thomas Moore w CHANSON TRISTE 2:54 Song of Sorrow · Trauriges Lied Text: Jean Lahor (= Henri Cazalis) ANITA RACHVELISHVILI mezzo-soprano e VINCENZO SCALERA LA VIE ANTÉRIEURE 4:03 piano A Former Life · Ein früheres Leben Recording: Lenø Records, Tbilisi, Georgia, January 26–30, 2020 Text: Charles Baudelaire Recording Producer, Editing & Mastering: Jakob Händel Executive Producer: Jack Ryan Smith MANUEL DE FALLA (1876–1946) Photos: Irma Sharikadze SIETE CANCIONES POPULARES ESPAÑOLAS Design: Büro Dirk Rudolph Seven Spanish Folk Songs · Sieben spanische Volkslieder Editorial: texthouse Liner notes translated by Eva Reisinger r EL PAÑO MORUNO 1:08 Lyrics translated by Natasha Ward (1–8), t SEGUIDILLA MURCIANA 1:18 Innes Merabishvili (9), Susannah Howe (10–12, 14–22) y ASTURIANA 2:24 u JOTA 2:43 i NANA 1:48 o CANCIÓN 1:27 p POLO FINDING NEW COLOURS To most of the world, Anita Rachvelishvili is known as an operatic mezzo, above “I grew up reading Tabidze, and only discovered the settings of his poetry by all as a Verdian; Riccardo Muti has called her “without doubt the best Verdi Taktakishvili later. There’s a recording of the great Irina Arkhipova singing mezzo-soprano today on the planet”. But there is another side to her artistry, far this music, though she does so in Russian. I’d love to include more Georgian removed from the dramatic fireworks of the opera house, and Rachvelishvili has songs in my recitals, especially to try to bring this repertoire to Europe and the long felt an affinity for the repertoire featured on this album. “I really love this USA. Russian music has become a part of worldwide culture, so maybe Geor- repertoire. It gives one more colours and more possibilities for expressing emo- gian music will too – though I think it could take many years. There are prac- tions with the voice. Colours are important to me in my singing, and these songs tical difficulties, as I found after I included that aria from The Legend of Shota are rich in them. So I tried to include some of my favourite songs, from right Rustaveli on my previous album – I had lots of requests from younger singers across several national schools. Everything, in fact, except German lieder – wanting the music. It’s like Azucena for Italian mezzos – every single mezzo which I feel belong on a separate programme. I’ve sung some lieder – Brahms, in Georgia sings that aria. But non-Georgians will struggle with the language, Mahler – but never yet a German role on the operatic stage, so I don’t yet feel I they’ll need a coach, so there are many challenges.” Rachvelishvili’s wish is to ‘own’ the language. And language is very important to me, especially when it become an ambassador for Georgian opera and song, but she is realistic in her comes to interpreting songs.” ambition, noting that even at home the full opera The Legend of Shota Rustave- Rachvelishvili is a natural linguist, and here she presents songs in Rus- li is seldom performed. Other pieces qualifying as national operas of Georgia sian, Georgian, Italian, French and Spanish. Her native Georgian is repre- face similar obstacles. sented by a single track at the centre of the programme – echoing the sym- There is really only one place for this recital to start: with Tchaikovsky’s fa- metry of her début album of operatic arias on Sony. There she made the mous None But the Lonely Heart, one of the composer’s set of Op. 6 songs written centrepiece the cavatina of Queen Tamar, from Dimitri Arakishvili’s The in 1869. Earlier than any other of Tchaikovsky’s pieces widely remembered to- Legend of Shota Rustaveli. Here the centrepiece is a song by Otar Takta- day, it raises the style of the drawing-room romance to another dimension, com- kishvili, Sun of Haying Month. Taktakishvili was a prolific composer who is bining a tune of deep melancholy with a translation from Goethe. “Working remembered by some for having written the old anthem of the Georgian with the pianist Vincenzo Scalera, we were trying to find songs suited to a low Soviet Socialist Republic. Always sensitive to words, he set a number of mezzo, or to low voices generally. Actually we ended up including some songs great Georgian poets, and Sun of Haying Month comes from a set of five really sung in the past only by baritones. So the recital is a little different from songs based on poems by Galaktion Tabidze. what you normally hear from mezzos. I listened to the old Russian baritones, and also of course to Dmitri Hvoros- guage, and I have been speaking it since childhood, but talking and singing are tovsky. It’s interesting to me that, of all the many great singers Georgia has different things, and it’s really important to understand how phonetics work in produced, few were baritones. We had great tenors, certainly – like Zurab An- this music. But as well as Arkhipova I must also mention Elena Obraztsova and, japaridze. So I suppose all this took me in different directions. In Reconciliation more recently, Olga Borodina. It makes me happy to record things that are usu- (Tchaikovsky’s op. 25 no. 1) we have a song where the text is really for a man, but ally the preserve of Russian singers – and to do so as a Georgian.” I found a way of making it work for myself. What really matters is to make every Rachvelishvili describes Italian as “a language very close to me. It’s my third word and note count.” language, and I speak it naturally and love reading it and watching movies in Several of the Rachmaninoff songs here also fulfil Rachvelishvili’s preference Italian. It is – of course – really beautiful and full of possibilities for the voice, for pieces “rare for a mezzo but well written for low voices”. But whatever the giving singers a chance to work with colours and shape dynamics. The songs of criteria, it would have been impossible to overlook the wonderful early song op. Francesco Paolo Tosti are just perfect for that, and his music flows with emotion. 4 no. 4, Do not sing to me, my beauty. A setting of Pushkin, it takes one of the There is lots of bel canto in Tosti.” This is the segment of her new recording that poems in which the great writer was recalling his exile in the Caucasus, in par- transports Rachvelishvili back to her studies in Milan; not of course the songs ticular an infatuation there: “Do not sing to me, my beauty, the songs of sad themselves, which tend to be the preserve of tenors, but the atmosphere of them Georgia.” The music is imbued with folk-like simplicity and in its melismata and and what she feels she has gained through renewing her partnership with the scales evokes Georgian colour. “Yes, I love this song very much. It’s usually sung pianist Vincenzo Scalera. “He knows these songs inside out, having spent so by tenors, extolling the beauty of women in Georgia, but sometimes sopranos much time working with tenors. Ever since we worked together at the Accadem- have done it. It’s nice to be able to take it and sing it in a lower key, finding new ia Teatro alla Scala I’ve wanted to collaborate with him again, so this recording colours, I hope, in the process.” Rachvelishvili’s selection from Rachmaninoff was a wonderful opportunity!” features songs taken from across his great contribution to the genre of Russian The intensity of Henri Duparc’s music, stemming in part from his tragic life romances. story, supplies contrast here, and Rachvelishvili has chosen three of the compos- Returning to her own voice type, which of the great mezzo interpreters of Rus- er’s 17 surviving songs, seemingly ahead of their time (they were written be- sian romances does Rachvelishvili admire most? “Well, first we have to mention tween the late 1860s and mid 1880s) in terms of their musical atmosphere.