Tatiana Marukhina

The dignified bearing and quiet wisdom of Nikolai Myaskovsky (1881–1950) gained him the sobriquet of ‘the conscience of Russian music’ – and those qualities are reflected in the unemphatic strength of his music. His orchestral, chamber and instrumental works are regaining the currency they once enjoyed, but his large corpus of songs, many of them understated masterpieces, has yet to attract systematic attention – a situation this series hopes to remedy. The pairing here of his late Violin Sonata with his last two song-cycles for soprano and piano mirrors the Moscow concert in 1947 when all three were given their first performances.

“I grew up in the jazz Manouche circles, which are dominated by swarms of guitarists – it’s not always easy to fit in as a singer! Most of the music has no lyrics, and the melodies are often too guitaristique to be sung. The microcosm fascinated me and I too wanted to participate in the Django repertoire… I saw only one option: I had to write my own lyrics, tell my own stories, reinvent his music in my own image.”