Mclaren

Russia’s rich tradition of art song began with early 19th-century salon pieces: lyrical ‘romances’ that evolved to embrace grander themes yet never lost their intimacy. This selection explores some fascinating but less-trodden paths through this repertoire, inspired by the theme of distant lands and encompassing the enduring themes of travel, romantic landscapes, love and loss, life and death. In this recital, Borodin meets Taneyev, a Moscow composition professor from the next generation; Shostakovich stands alongside another major symphonist, his Moscow colleague Myaskovsky, and Shostakovich’s student Boris Tchaikovsky, a prodigy widely known for his film music, passes the baton to Elena Firsova, a post-Soviet émigré to England and a distinctive lyrical voice of today. Inspired by the songs of Taneyev, Myaskovksy and Firsova, countertenor Hamish McLaren embarked on distant travels of his own, journeying to Russia where he found two previously unreleased film songs by Shostakovich, heard here in their world-premiere recordings.

Malcolm McLaren was an English impresario, visual artist, performer, musician, clothes designer and boutique owner, notable for combining these activities in an inventive and provocative way. He is best known as a promoter and manager of bands the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols.
1st CD is full of the compositions and arrangements of Malcolm McLaren including his original lyrics and most often his spoken contributions to the pieces. He is certainly a creative musician and conceptual artist. The remake of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je T'Aime …Moi Non Plus" is very well done. The album also features Catherine Deneauve, the actress; Sonia Rykiel, the clothing designer; and Francoise Hardy, the French pop star sing with him on various selections…

Anton Rubinstein wrote his Persian Songs in 1854, while on tour in Germany. The source was a recent collection of poems by Friedrich von Bodenstedt, who advertised them as translations from the work of the Azeri poet Mirza Shafi Vazeh (Mirzə Şəfi Vazeh, 1805-52), with whom he had studied during his travels to the Caucasus. Tchaikovsky was later commissioned to produce a singable Russian translation of the German texts, but he disputed the provenance, maintaining that Bodenstedt, whom he had met, did not know Persian and simply invented the poems (Bodenstedt, as it happens, had by then decided to claim the authorship of these bestselling poems for himself). The 20th century saw a revival of Vazeh’s work, and an examination of the original texts showed that Bodenstedt had indeed translated them, although his versions were much more effusive than Vazeh’s.

Malcolm McLaren - Paris (1994) {Vogue 74321191392}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 332 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 124 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 17 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1994 Vogue | 7432119139
Jazz / Downtempo / Synth-Pop / Lounge

Malcolm McLaren has never been a musician, at least never in any accepted sense of the word. Rather, he's a self-promoter. Even when he was managing the Sex Pistols, most of his press conferences concentrated on what a great scam he had come up with, not the music itself. On his own records, he's been supported by first-rate musicians who manage to hide his half-baked concepts. On Paris, he has nothing to hide behind – the musicians fade into the background, since the record is essentially a love letter to Paris.