Sergei Rachmaninov - Romances (Dmitri Hvorostovsky; Ivari Ilja)

Information

Composer: Sergei Rachmaninov

1. We shall rest
2. Do you remember the evening?
3. Oh no, I beg you, do not leave!
4. Morning
5. In the silence of the mysterious night
6. Oh you, my corn field!
7. My child, you are beautiful as a flower
8. A dream
9. I was with her
10. I am waiting for you
11. Do not believe me, my friend
12. She is as beautiful as noon
13. Spring waters
14. In my soul
15. It is time!
16. They replied
17. An excerpt from Alfred de Musset
18. How nice this place is
19. How much it hurts
20. Everything I had
21. Yesterday we met
22. Everything passes
23. Sad night
24. Once again, I am alone
25. At the gates of the holy cloister
26. Christ is risen!

Dmitri Hvorostovsky, baritone

Ivari Ilja, piano

Date: 2012

Label: Ondine

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Review

Now in his fiftieth year, Dmitri Hvorostovsky has been singing internationally for almost a quarter of a century. It would be reasonable to expect some small signs of wear in his vibrant baritone. There is perhaps now a trace of roughness where before all was smooth, uninterrupted tone and the top can become decidedly a little rocky when he leans into the note but all in all his baritone remains in remarkably fine shape. The bottom notes are dark and resonant, the middle only a little grainy when he sings mezza voce (as at the end of no.5) and the top G’s continue to ring out thrillingly with only a hint of a flap. Any signs of stress are, in any case, hardly inappropriate in music as desperately passionate as this.

 

Perhaps it is too much to listen to the whole programme at one sitting, given that the preponderance of the music is so melancholy and soul-sifting in that famous Russian idiom. I don’t say that there is a lack of variety in the programme, especially when both singer and pianist interpret with such commitment and passion. Rachmaninov’s melodic gifts are in such evidence but over an hour of such intensity can be wearing. My favourite items so far are the mounting ecstasy of the second song, “Do you remember, the evening?”, the haunting “She is as beautiful as the moon”, opening with strummed arpeggios reminiscent of Schubert’s “Dioskuren” and continuing with melismata in a distinctly Polovtsian minor mode, and “In the silence of the mysterious night” climaxing with a magnificent G-flat and a long-breathed piano D to conclude. I also love the dignified restraint of no.6, so Russian with its rolling underlay and punctuating chords, building to a great cry of pain.

 

This is Hvorostovsky’s first recording on the Finnish Ondine label, with whom he has signed a long-term contract. Although he has recorded some of these songs before, his voice is now perfectly weighted and his artistry honed by long experience sufficient to give them his finest interpretation. It helps to have a native speaker intone texts by some of Russia’s greatest 19th century Romantic poets.

 

The recording is perfect; there is a lovely balance between the singing tone of the piano and the singer’s sonorous baritone. Estonian pianist Ivari Ilja is Hvorostovsky’s regular accompanist and plays wonderfully, with agogic freedom, shaded nuance and great variety of colour.

-- Ralph Moore

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Sergei Rachmaninov (1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1873 – 28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. His music was influenced by Tchaikovsky, Arensky and Taneyev. Rachmaninov wrote five works for piano and orchestra: four concertos and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He also composed a number of works for orchestra alone, including three symphonies, the Symphonic Dances Op. 45, and four symphonic poems.

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Dmitri Hvorostovsky (16 October 1962 – 22 November 2017) was a Russian operatic baritone. Hvorostovsky came to international prominence when he won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 1989, which was followed by his opera debut in France, Italy, the US and the UK. He subsequently sang at virtually every major opera house, such as the Metropolitan Opera, the Berlin State Opera, La Scala and the Vienna State Opera, and was especially renowned for his role in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. Hvorostovsky made many CD recordings, and a number of his performances were also filmed.

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Ivari Ilja (born 3 May 1959 in Tallinn) is an Estonian pianist. He studied at the Tallinn State Conservatoire with Laine Mets, and at the Moscow Conservatory with Vera Gornostayeva and Sergei Dorensky. Ilja is an internationally recognized accompanist; his collaboration with Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Irina Arkhipova, Maria Guleghina and Elena Zaremba has been particularly successful. He has also held solo recitals and performed as a soloist with several symphony orchestras. Ilja taught at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre since 1986, and and held the position of Head of the Piano Department from 2000 to 2015.

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