Composer: Nikolay Lysenko
Performer: Solomia Soroka, Arthur Greene
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0177
Release: 2015
Size: 633 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. 2nd Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes, Op. 18 “Dumka-Shumka”
02. Elegiac Capriccio, Op. 32
03. Fantasy on 2 Ukrainian Themes, Op. 21
04. Romance, Op. 27
Personal Album, Op. 40
05. No. 1, A Moment of Despair
06. Elegy in Memory of Shevchenko
07. The Sun Is Setting
Spring Kaleidoscope
08. I. She Who Was Born from the Waves
09. II. I Rose at Dawn
10. III. I Believe in Beauty
11. IV. Should Only Roses Bloom
12. V. One Sad Spring
13. VI. My Beloved
14. VII. On a Clear Night
15. VIII. Do Not Look at the Moon in Spring
16. IX. A Mist Across the Valley
17. X. Spring Awoke My Heart
18. Valse brillante
Mykola Lysenko (1842–1912) is regarded as ‘the father of Ukrainian classical music’ but his music is virtually unknown outside his home country.
As did Bartók later in Hungary, Lysenko went out into the field, listened to what the people were singing and fashioned an individual musical language that brought together the styles of Chopin and Liszt and the essence of Ukrainian folksong.
This CD presents his complete output of music for violin and piano, the main piece being the popular Second Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes also known as ‘Dumka-Shumka’.
It is complemented by Spring Kaleidoscope, a new work for violin and piano commissioned by the performers on this CD to display the lyrical riches of Lysenko’s vocal writing: it is a transcription for violin and piano by the Ukrainian composer Viktor Kaminsky of ten Lysenko songs.
This CD is launched together with another Toccata Classics CD, Mykola Lysenko – Piano Music: Volume One, also played .by Arthur Greene. The booklet contains commentary in both English and Ukrainian.
Solomia Soroka, violin, studied in her native Ukraine and resides in the USA. She has recorded CDs of Leone Sinigaglia, Arthur Hartmann and Myroslav Skoryk for Toccata Classics, where one critic praised the ‘elegance and refinement’ of her playing, continuing that ‘the ensemble between her and Arthur Greene, a husband and wife team, is splendid’. Arthur Greene was born in New York and grew up in Sheffield, Mass.; he studied at Yale and Juilliard where he studied with Martin Canin. He now teaches at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.