Customer Reviews

Moussorgski: Chansons

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This double CD brings together two previously separate releases of Moussorgsky songs by Sergei Leiferkus. Leiferkus delivers his trademark, i.e. a seemingly effortless pairing of textual accuracy, dramatic eloquence and simple melodic beauty, on almost all of the songs here. Highlights include The Songs & Dances of Death, Mephistopheles' Song of the Flea, Where art thou, little Star, and the Harper's Song. All in all, this is a faboulous collection of many all-time favourite Moussorgski songs by one of the greatest baritones alive.

Essential Mussorgsky...
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Considering the archaeology of the lied: Beethoven wrote a few memorable songs along with the first enduring song-cycle; Schubert's monumental oeuvre of approximately 600 lieder stands alone in excellence; the art-songs of Schumann, Brahms, and Strauss--while superb--all somewhat run together in a vague miasma of later Romanticism.
Wolf's exquisite lieder stand apart after Schubert's, while of Modern composers only Schönberg produced a really significant body in the genre.
(To be sure almost all composers after Beethoven dabbled in lieder a bit, some even producing a few exceptional songs or song-cycles--[e.g., Butterworth's Housman songs, Hindemith's Das Marienleben, Schoeck's liederkreisen, and Fauré's mélodies].)

The Russian genealogy of art-song writing extends from Beethoven's influence on Glinka, via Balakirev, unto Mussorgsky et alii, which brings us to this extraordinary set of recordings featuring Mussorgsky's three song-cycles (The Nursery [1872]; Sunless [1874]; Songs and Dances of Death [1877]) as realized by St. Petersburg natives baritone Sergei Leiferkus with the gifted accompanist Semion Skigin.

Mussorgsky was a talented pianist and lieder accompanist who wrote songs throughout his brief career which reflect his most essential characteristics of humanistic empathy and psychological insight combined with harmonic originality and the melismatic heterophony oft found in Eastern European folk tunes. (These elements too are reflected in Mussorgsky's immortal piano-cycle Pictures at an Exhibition [1874].)
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This bargain reissue has one grave flaw in the absence of a lyric-booklet; indeed the packaging is that cheap type of thin folding paper and plastic. The single page of notes and song titles are in French. Collection includes a total of 40 songs of Mussorgsky's complete lieder oeuvre of 58; excellent performances and sound should satisfy most enthusiasts.
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look for Leiferkus in:

Borodin and Dargomïzhsky lieder Borodin/Dargomizhsky: Songs
Tchaikovsky Mazeppa Tchaikovsky: Mazeppa . Tchaikovsky - Mazeppa
Rachmaninov chamber operas Rachmaninov: Complete Operas
Beethoven Fidelio Fidelio
Mussorgsky Boris Godunov Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov . Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov
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Mussorgsky complete music for solo piano Mussorgsky: Piano Music
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see too Musorgsky
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I highly recommend you to check how Nesterenko (Melodya) and Christoff do the same vocal cycles. They are both truly magnificent. I respect Leiferkus' talent but cannot say that he's the best here.