Today we wanted to share a good review of a recent release – Balakirev: Complete Romances. The review comes from the audiophile magazine “Audiophile Audition.” The review gives great information on Balakirev and the pieces on this two-disc set, and we will only excerpt a small amount here, so make sure to read the full review on the Audiophile Audition website.
BALAKIREV: Complete Romances for Soprano, Mezzo-soprano, Baritone, and Bass – Margarita Alaverian, soprano/Alexander Gergalov, baritone/Lyubov Sokolova, mezzo-soprano/Georgy Seleznev, bass/Yuri Serov, piano – Delos DE 3376, 2 CDs 51:27; 53:05 [Distr. by Naxos] ****:
Mili Balakirev (1836-1910) suffers the dubious fate of being remembered predominantly as a great influence: he “fathered” the so-called Mighty Five or Mighty Handful of composers who brought the more “Eastern” influence to the Russian school of music, particularly through the Free Music School in St. Petersburg. His musical career curtailed by a combination of physical and mental setbacks, along with an overzealous religious fundamentalism, Balakirev maintained an interest in vocal composition, utilizing the poetry of A. Koltsov, M. Lermontov, L. Tolstoy, A. Pushkin, and A. Khomyakov as the bases of romance settings, conceived 1855-1865; 1895-1896; and the last set, 1903-1904. The forty-three romances presented on these two discs were recorded at the St. Catherine Lutheran Church, St. Petersburg, Russia. All the participants, except Ms. Alaverdian–who graduated from the Odessa Conservatory–are alumni of the St. Petersburg, Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory…Please continue reading at audaud.com