MEDTNER SONGS SIURINA GRINGYTE PALCHYKOV BURNSIDE TRITSCHLER POGOSSOV DIDENKO NIKOLAI MEDTNER (1880–1951) SONGS EKATERINA SIURINA SOPRANO JUSTINA GRINGYTĖ MEZZO-SOPRANO OLEKSIY PALCHYKOV TENOR ROBIN TRITSCHLER TENOR RODION POGOSSOV BARITONE NIKOLAY DIDENKO BASS IAIN BURNSIDE PIANO CD1 from Three Romances, Op. 3 from Eight Poems, Op. 24 1 No. 1 By the gate of a holy cloister – У врат обители святой RP [02:45] 19 No. 1 Day and Night – День и ночь RP [02:41] 2 No. 2 I have outlived my desires – Я пережил свои желанья RP [02:18] 20 No. 2 The Willow (Why are you bending your head?) – Что ты клонишь ES [01:24] над водами? from Nine Songs after Goethe, Op. 6 21 No. 4 Twilight – Сумерки JG [03:28] 3 No. 1 Wandrers Nachtlied [II] ND [02:16] 22 No. 5 I am struck dumb – Я потрясён когда кругом OP [02:46] 4 No. 2 Mailied RT [02:06] 23 No. 7 A whisper, a shy breath – Шёпот, робкое дыханье RP [01:30] 5 No. 3 Elfenliedchen JG [01:37] from Seven Poems, Op. 28 6 No. 4 Im Vorübergehn RT [02:27] 24 RP 7 No. 5 Aus Claudine von Villa-Bella RP [01:59] No. 1 Unexpected Rain – Нежданный дождь [02:40] 25 JG 8 No. 6 Aus Erwin und Elmire I RT [01:41] No. 2 Whenever I hear birdsong – Не могу я слышать этой птички [01:35] 26 No. 3 The Butterfly – Бабочка JG [01:28] Two Poems, Op. 13 27 No. 6 I sit, thoughtful and alone – Сижу задумчив и один ND [05:03] 9 No. 1 Winter Evening – Зимний вечер RP [03:39] from Seven Poems after Pushkin, Op. 29 10 No. 2 Epitaph – Эпитафия JG [02:47] 28 No. 2 The Singer – Певец ES [02:57] from Twelve Songs after Goethe, Op. 15 29 No. 3 Lines Written During a Sleepless Night – Стихи, сочиненные ночью во ND [03:04] время бессонницы 11 No. 1 Wandrers Nachtlied I ND [02:36] 30 No. 6 The Rose – Роза ND [02:06] 12 No. 3 Selbstbetrug JG [01:12] 31 No. 7 The Incantation – Заклинание ND [03:04] 13 No. 6 Vor Gericht JG [03:06] 14 No. 7 Meeresstille RT [02:52] Total playing time (CD1) [75:35] 15 No. 8 Glückliche Fahrt RT [01:23] from Six Poems after Goethe, Op. 18 16 No. 4 Mignon JG [02:06] 17 No. 5 Das Veilchen RT [03:18] 18 No. 6 Jägers Abendlied ND [01:27] CD2 from Six Poems, Op. 32 from Seven Poems, Op. 46 1 No. 1 The Echo – Эхо RP [03:10] 15 No. 2 Geweihter Platz ES [02:53] 2 No. 4 I loved you – Я вас любил OP [03:13] 16 No. 4 Im Walde ND [01:14] 3 No. 5 Can I ever forget that sweet moment? (Waltz) – Могу ль забыть то OP [02:58] 17 No. 5 Winternacht RT [03:36] сладкое Мгновенье? (Вальс) from Seven Songs on Poems by Pushkin, Op. 52 from Six Poems after Pushkin, Op. 36 18 No. 2 The Raven – Ворон ES [02:09] 4 OP No. 1 The Angel – Ангел [02:11] 19 No. 6 Serenade – Серенада OP [03:01] 5 No. 2 The Flower – Цветок ES [02:28] 6 No. 3 As soon as roses wilt – Лишь розы уврядают ES [02:07] from Eight Songs, Op. 61 7 No. 4 Spanish Romance – Испанский Романс OP [02:12] 20 No. 1 Reiselied RT [02:58] 8 No. 6 Arion – Арион ES [03:54] 21 No. 3 What is my name to you? – Что в имени тебе моём? OP [03:04] 22 No. 4 If life deceives you – Если жизнь тебя обманет JG [01:51] from Five Poems, Op. 37 23 No. 6 Midday – Полдень RP [02:16] 9 No. 1 Sleeplessness – Бессонница JG [05:40] 10 No. 2 Tears – Слёзы ES [02:16] Total playing time (CD2) [68:15] 11 No. 4 Waltz – Вальс ES [02:41] from Four Poems, Op. 45 12 No. 1 Elegy – Элегия OP [06:28] 13 No. 2 The Cart of Life – Телега жизни OP [02:55] These recordings would not have been possible without the unqualified 14 No. 4 Our Time – Наш век JG [02:47] generosity of Uri Liebrecht. We cannot thank him enough. Recorded on 22-23 March, 31 May, Session photography Join the Delphian mailing list: 1, 7 & 8 June 2016 & 17-19 April 2017 © Delphian Records www.delphianrecords.co.uk/join in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh Design: John Christ Like us on Facebook: Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter Booklet editor/Translator: www.facebook.com/delphianrecords 24-bit digital editing: Matthew Swan Henry Howard 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Consultant translator: Follow us on Twitter: Pianos: Steinway, model D, serial Paul Alexei Smith @delphianrecords numbers 589064 & 600443 Delphian Records – Edinburgh – UK Piano technician: Norman W. Motion www.delphianrecords.co.uk Nikolai Medtner: Songs Notes on the music The key to Medtner is paradox. This Medtner’s Veilchen is taken to the opposite If one considers ‘Englishness’ in music of abilities, Emil vicariously satisfied his defiantly self-proclaimed conservative has extreme, fevered vocal declamation surging the early twentieth century, one is struck ambitions by seeking to ‘orchestrate’ and control moments of striking modernity. Our German over turbulent keyboard polyphony, in his (and that some of its defining figures possessed Nikolai’s career. A troubled, volatile and neurotic Russian can change, chameleon-like, into Rachmaninov’s) go-to key of passion, E flat distinctly un-English names. Finzi, for example, personality, from early adult life Emil embodied a Russian German. Medtner the dazzling minor. In Schubert’s Meeresstille a single was the scion of Italian Jewish bankers who an endemic Russian antisemitism, compounded performer bequeathed future colleagues sublime page of quietly rolled chords evokes had settled in London several generations by his determination to drag Russian culture finger-crunchingly complex piano parts; Goethe’s becalmed sea. By contrast Medtner before, while Holst was descended from back into the fold of a German literary tradition. yet he is often most eloquent when simplest. takes as his starting point ‘Deathly, awful Russians who had reached Britain via Riga. The contradictions raging within him are Any Medtner enthusiast rejoices in such quiet’: ‘Todes-stille fürchterlich!’ His song In such composers, perversely perhaps, the exemplified by his marriage late in 1902 to creative tensions. becomes a study in anything other than calm, unerring instinct for some kind of indigenous Anna Bratenshi. A study of Emil by the Swedish an irregular metre keeping the music restless sensibility seems rooted in and driven by writer Magnus Ljunggren implies that Emil was From the vast output of Medtner songs I have and unsettled, its beauty sinister. perception of themselves as outsiders. In latently homosexual. Moreover, Anna came chosen over 50. More than any other genre seeking the essence of Nikolai Medtner, of a Jewish family. Further complexity arose these songs exemplify Medtner’s Russian/ Some Medtner songs have instant appeal, be arguably we are faced with a similar paradox. when Anna and Nikolai confessed to Emil that German divide, manifest in his devotion to both it the bravura of Winter Evening or the delicious they were passionately in love. Emil ostensibly Goethe and Pushkin. And while the differences languor of Midday. Others need persistence Nikolai was born on 5 January 1880. His forgave them, but swore them to secrecy in in his response to each language are fascinating, from both listener and performer. Pianists mother’s ancestry reached back to northern order not to outrage the bourgeois sensibilities so too is their cross-fertilisation: the modal flicking through Medtner songs for the first time Germany and to Sweden, while his father of his parents. Inextricably linked to one another, harmony of Mignon and Reiselied could hardly can be forgiven for echoing John McEnroe: You Karl’s family is believed to have originated in the three became an indivisible trio bound by sound less German, or more Russian. cannot be serious. Vocal lines don’t always go Denmark, moving to Russia via what is now strange ties of mutual dependency, guilt and where you expect them to. In preparing this Estonia. Karl Medtner was director of a lace manipulation. Only after the death of his mother By choosing Goethe and Pushkin as his recording more than one singer cried out ‘It all factory in Moscow, a prosperous and well-read in 1918 did Nikolai finally marry Anna, who had muses Medtner treads on hallowed turf. makes sense until you start playing!’ There is man, devoted to both Russian and German miscarried two children by him in secret during You have to admire the cojones of any another parallel here, as Francis Pott points out culture. Accordingly the family imbibed Goethe the early years of the century. composer daring to tackle iconic, often- below, with Hugo Wolf. As with Wolf, Medtner alongside Pushkin, Beethoven alongside set poems after Schubert, Schumann or has a distinct vocabulary that takes time to Tchaikovsky. Nikolai was described by an early colleague Rachmaninov. Medtner embraces the register. I believe he is well worth the effort. as ‘delicate, shy … a sensitive and lofty soul challenge only when he has something Medtner’s voice is unique. Nikolai was the youngest of five surviving … in no way adapted to practical life’. Exiled different to say. Mozart’s Das Veilchen is children, among whom one brother, Emil, was by the Revolution in 1921, he remained heavily one of the earliest Lieder masterpieces, © 2018 Iain Burnside to exercise over the composer a Svengalian dependent upon his redoubtable wife, with Goethe’s allegory of a rejected lover turned influence until his death in 1936, and even whom he migrated to Germany, to France into exquisite eighteenth-century porcelain.