Rachmaninov's Songs
Rachmaninov's Songs
The Gramophone Choice
12 Songs, Op 21. 15 Songs, Op 26. Were you hiccoughing?. Night
Joan Rodgers sop Maria Popescu mez Alexandre Naoumenko ten Sergei Leiferkus bar Howard Shelley pf
Chandos CHAN9451 (72' · DDD · T/t) Buy from Amazon
Two figures in particular haunt this second volume of Chandos’s survey of Rachmaninov’s songs – Chaliapin and Rachmaninov himself. They had become friends in the years when they worked together in an opera company and when Rachmaninov was concentrating on developing his piano virtuosity. As a result the Op 21 songs are dominated by an almost operatic declamatory manner coupled with formidably difficult accompaniments. Leiferkus rises splendidly to the occasion, above all in ‘Fate’ (Op 21 No 1), and so throughout the songs does Howard Shelley. He’s unbowed by the technical problems and he understands the novel proportions of songs in which the piano’s participation has an unprecedented role. He also enjoys himself in the roisterous exchanges with Leiferkus in what’s really Rachmaninov’s only light-hearted song, ‘Were you hiccoughing?’.
The songs for the other voices are less powerful, in general more lyrical and intimate. Alexandre Naoumenko only has five songs, and they aren’t, on the whole, among the more striking examples, but he responds elegantly to ‘The Fountain’ (Op 26 No 11). Maria Popescu gives a beautiful account of one of the most deservedly popular of them all, ‘To the children’ (Op 26 No 7), and of the remarkable Merezhkovsky setting ‘Christ is risen’ (Op 26 No 6). Joan Rodgers is enchanting in ‘The Lilacs’ (Op 21 No 5) and moving in the song acknowledging that love is slipping away, ‘Again I am alone’ (Op 26 No 9). She has complete mastery of the style, and nothing here is finer than her arching phrase ending ‘How peaceful’ (Op 21 No 7) – ‘da ty, mechta moya’ (‘and you, my dream’) – with Shelley gently articulating Rachmaninov’s reflective piano postlude from the world of Schumann.
Additional Recommendation
14 Songs, Op 34. Letter to KS Stanislavsky. From the Gospel of St John. Six Songs, Op 38. A Prayer. All wish to sing
J Rodgers sop Popescu mez Naoumenko ten Leiferkus bar Shelley pf
Chandos CHAN9477 (68‘ · DDD · T/t) Buy from Amazon
Some of Rachmaninov’s greatest songs are here, coloured in their invention by the four great singers whose hovering presence makes the disposition of this recital between four similar voices a highly successful idea. The Chaliapin songs go to Sergei Leiferkus, occasionally a little overshadowed by his mighty example but more often his own man. Alexandre Naoumenko inherits the mantle of Leonid Sobinov, and though he sometimes resorts to a near-falsetto for soft high notes, he appears to have listened to that fine tenor’s elegance of line and no less subtle feeling for poetry. Maria Popescu has only two songs, but she has a light tone and bright manner. Joan Rodgers is exquisite in the most rapturous and inward of the songs.
