Elena FIRSOVA Akhmatova Songs; Mandelstam Poems; Hymn to
Spring; Frozen Time; La Malinconia; The Night Demons;
Vernal Equinox; Scent of Absence; Crucifixion; Meditation in the Japanese
Garden; Before the Thunderstorm.
Patricia Rosario, Tim Mirfin,
Michael Vaiman
Meladina Record
MRCD00012a/00013a. 79'18"
This is an extraordinarily successful live recording of Elena Firsova's
celebratory 50th birthday concert, reviewed in detail by
S&H,
March 2000, when I expressed the hope that some
of the music might appear on CD. Firsova and
her husband Dmitri Smirnov are important representatives of the ex-Soviet
emigrés now in the West, and the enrichment of British musical life
thereby is reflected by the participants in this double-CD and in the recent
Russian
Easter Weekend in London, 28-30 April, also
reviewed by
S&H.
Patricia Rosario's accounts of two groups of songs, and as soloist
in a major Cantata to poignant poems by Mandelstam, are perhaps the high
points; she is in perfect voice, captured by expert engineering at the Royal
Academy of Music. Tim Mirfin (bass) impresses in two striking settings of
poems by Oleg Prokofiev. Michael Vaiman, a distinguished Russian violinist,
is partnered by his pianist son, Daniel, in the world premiere of Vernal
Equinox Op. 94, commissioned for the occasion. Two great Russian cellists
participate - Alexander Ivashkin and Karine Georgian. Richard Shaw accompanies
Ivashkin in The Night Demons and Owen Murray (accordion) partners
Karine Georgian in Crucifixion.. Ian Pace plays the Hymn to
Spring for solo piano. The Brodsky Quartet gave Firsova's 10th
String Quartet, which is also featured on the CD mentioned below.
Unusually for CDs, although individual tracks can be selected in the normal
way, the items run continuously without pauses; this appears to have been
a deliberate artistic decision. For full enjoyment of the music, a copy of
the RAM concert programme, with programme notes and all texts, is desirable.
Reviewer
Peter Grahame Woolf
Meladina = Elena Firsova + Dmitri Smirnov. Enquiries about Scores, Tapes
& CDs of music by these two composers to
dmitrismirnov@lineone.net New string quartets by both composers are featured in a Brodsky Quartet
recent release, reviewed in
Music on the Web May
2000. PGW
