Apparently the Bolsheviks thought such things effete and bourgeois. It was, after all, a sign of gentility in 19th-century Russia that conversation should be graced with a mot juste or phrase epigrammatique in French and that musical evenings should include an aria or canzonetta in Italian. German was probably a little heavy for the drawing-room but nevertheless suggestive of philosophical depth and irreproachable earnestness. Russian composers who set poems in these languages naturally tended to adopt Western ways, with smoothly flowing lines for the singer and unobtrusive arpeggio-style accompaniments for the pianist. Later in the century bolder, more passionate and virtuosic forms of expression would come into play, but if to foreign texts, then usually in translation. In the present selection the most sensitive settings are probably the two by Cui, and musically the most interesting is probably Medtner’s setting of Goethe’s wistful questioning of the ‘liebliches Kind’. Not much emerges that is distinctively Russian.
The Russian singer, too, must adapt, and Sergei Larin is readily able to do so. He sings well in all three languages and moderates the considerable volume of his fine tenor to suit the intimacy and gentleness of idiom. Some of the songs are a trifle low in tessitura, but all ask for a well- mannered sweetness of tone and a properly schooled legato line, both of which he can offer. Whether they call for more than he gives them in the way of expression is doubtful; what is certain is that if they are to constitute an entire programme, as here, something needs to be done to stimulate interest.
The pianist provides all that she can be expected to; indeed, in the recorded balance, I sometimes thought there was a little too much of her. As John Warrack remarked in his review of the previous volume (‘Dream’, 6/00) the collection has a certain interest ‘indicating how much European literary influences played a part… in the westernising strain of 19th-century Russian artists’. And yet intrinsic interest is exactly what I find lacking. Individually, the songs are pleasant; collectively tepid. I’m afraid I came to think the Bolsheviks had a point.'