Rachmaninov: Spring torrents, Op. 14 No.11 (Vesenniye Vody)

For his first CD release on Ondine, star baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky has chosen art song repertoire of great intensity and emotion from his Russian home country.

The 26 romances by Sergei Rachmaninov on this disc include such popular songs as Spring waters, op.14/11 or In the silence of the mysterious night, op.4/3.

Together with his longstanding duo partner, Estonian pianist Ivari Ilja, they have frequently performed many of these songs to great critical acclaim (“Mr. Hvorostovsky used the infinite shadings of his luxuriously dark and dusky voice to illuminate the yearning nuances of bitterness and regret. […] his admirable range of expressive and dynamic shadings [was] aptly mirrored by Ivari Ilja, an exemplary accompanist..” – The New York Times, 5 April 2008)

Dmitri Hvorostovsky is recognized as one of the leading and most charismatic baritones of our time, performing internationally at such opera houses as the New York Met, and partnering regularly with singers Renée Fleming and Jonas Kaufmann.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky recently signed to Ondine. He has released numerous highly successful CD and DVD recordings on such labels as Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, and Delos.

Barbara Hendricks' voice — particularly suited to Mozart, Debussy, Fauré, and the lighter roles of Puccini and Richard Strauss — has a warm, crystalline quality that has kept her in demand on stage and in recording studios. Her performances have embraced everything from contemporary music to popular standards, including songs of Duke Ellington and several world premieres. She has been careful with her choices of repertoire, avoiding roles that would overextend her essentially lyric instrument. Aside from music, she is deeply committed to humanitarian work, with a particular concern for refugees and those in war or poverty zones. She sang a concert in Sarajevo in 1993 while the city was being shelled, in which she had to wear a bulletproof vest and helmet.

Hendricks has appeared on nearly 80 recordings spread over a variety of major labels. Her first of many recordings for EMI was in the small part of the Celestial Voice in Don Carlo in 1978. For nearly twenty years her solo recordings have been made exclusively for EMI Classics.

The music of Rachmaninov has been a source of great inspiration throughout Yuki Ito’s Life. A graduate of the Royal College of Music, London, Yuki Ito was born in Tokyo in 1989 and began playing the cello at the age of 6. This new recording for Champs Hill Records forms part of his prize for winning the UK’s highest profile gateway to string players - the Windsor Festival International String Competition.

Rachmaninov composed his first piece for the cello in honour of Vera, the youngest of the Skalon sisters he had met while holidaying with family aged 17. One can hear in this short but ‘soulful’ little piece the earnestness of Rachmaninov’s intentions, originally titled Lied (the German term for an art song) but now more widely known as ‘Romance’. However, the affair was forcibly ended when Vera’s mother heard of the young couple’s habit of sitting together at dusk holding hands. Although talented, a rising young musician was thought a very poor match for a general’s daughter, and Rachmaninov was forbidden to contact to Vera again.

Rachmaninov’s next cello work, the sweetly lyrical Prelude in F, was composed to be performed in his first public concert as a pianist-composer. After its premiere by himself and Brandukov, his long time friend, in 1892, the Prelude was repeated two years later coupled with the ‘Oriental Dance’. In 1895 Rachmaninov composed his First Symphony, a work considered by some to be the finest of his symphonic works.

Rachmaninov followed this with his Op. 14 collection of songs, including ‘Spring Torrents’ (arranged for cello and piano in this recording by Yuki Ito): here we can hear a composer at the peak of his ability and ambition, writing some of the most impassioned and virtuosic piano accompaniment to be heard in his oeuvre as he portrays the exuberant and almost violent eruption of spring in Russia.

Rachmaninov’s Sonata for Cello and Piano was composed immediately after completing his breakthrough Second Piano Concerto in 1901 and was originally completed in November that year. In character the Sonata shares much in common with the Concerto, such as the typically melancholic and soulful second theme of its first movement.

Beautifully packaged as a book with a CD, it features the music of Russian songs, arranged for cello and piano. The poems by Pushkin, Tiutchev, Tolstoy and others inspired the great 19th century composers to create the beautiful songs which are firmly embedded in the collective psyche of every Russian.

David Geringas studied at the Moscow Conservatoire with Rostropovich and has received a number of awards for his recordings. He has had several contemporary works dedicated to him including the Cello Concerto by Peteris Vasks.