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22 TRAVEL ALBUM
Did you face a similar challenge with the third of Rachmaninoff’s
Russian
Songs
op.41?
Very much so. The choir often sings a different text to the same notes, but you can
find tricks on the piano to vary the music. The important thing is to preserve the
traditional dimension of the song and of the orchestral accompaniment, which
imitates the balalaika. The piece is rooted in folklore, and in the end Rachmaninoff
didn’t over-harmonise it, but he added little touches that are personal to him. The
song has a powerful element of nostalgia in it, as usual in music from his period
of exile in America. Incidentally, the
Three Russian Songs
were composed almost at
the same time as the Fourth Piano Concerto, and were dedicated to the conductor
Leopold Stokowski. Although the concerto enjoyed little success, the three songs
were received very favourably. The third,
Whiten my rouged cheeks
, whose text tells a
dramatic story of jealousy very simply, is extraordinarily beautiful.
What is the musical language of Grieg’s
Norwegian Peasant Dances
(Slåtter)
?
I selected three of the seventeen pieces in the cycle. This was another case of love
at first sight for me. In these rarely played pieces, Grieg uses a very original, more
rugged language, in which the dissonances ensure the themes keep their rusticity,
in order to evoke the playing of folk fiddlers. One hears effects suggesting the
arrival of a group of musicians who then gradually move away into the distance, as
in the second piece played here.