Medtner

Songs: selections from Songs After Goethe, Opp. 6 & 15; Poems after Pushkin, Opp. 29, 32 & 36; Songs on Poems by Pushkin, Op. 52, etc. Ekaterina Siurina (soprano), Justina Gringytė (mezzo-soprano), Oleksiy Palchykov (tenor), Robin Tritschler (tenor), Rodion Pogossov (baritone), Nikolay Didenko (bass),

Iain Burnside (piano)

Delphian DCD 34177 143:50 mins (2 discs) ‘The complete Medtner next, please,’ my concluding plea in the magazine’s May 2014 review of the Iain Burnside-masterminded complete Rachmaninov songs, has been half-answered; it would take four, rather than two, CDS to give us the entire voice-andpiano output of Rachmaninov’s comparatively neglected friend and near-contemporary. An important cautionary note is to mention that the only quibble about the first set – that the singers were ‘too closely recorded for comfort’ – has not been heeded; the ear-singeing sound of the bigger moments is now compounded by the inappropriate reverberation of Greyfriars’ Kirk.

Once you know what to expect, though, there are many equal pleasures here from three of the original team plus three newcomers, two good, one superb (tenor Robin Tritschler, the only non-slav, the most Lieder-friendly of all for the rather Russian settings of Goethe and Eichendorff, surprisingly big for a lyric tenor in his last two contributions). Mezzo Justina Gringyt once again impresses in her seriousness; soprano Ekaterina Siurina trumps her performance of Rachmaninov’s Pushkin setting Arion with Medtner’s, even richer, coasting the waves; and baritone Rodion Pogossov has some of the treasures here, best of all the Pushkin (rather than Goethe) Winter Evening with its rich pianistic storm-surge superbly handled, like all else, by Burnside (whose splendid little introductory essay in the booklet is borne out by what we hear). Medtner is a true original, closer to Wolf than Rachmaninov in depth and philosophy, and a surprising companion if you listen to each disc at a single sitting, which you can, with pleasure. David Nice

PERFORMANCE ★★★★

RECORDING ★★