MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS
Sound Samples & Downloads

Mikhail Vysotsky and the gypsies of Moscow
Mikhail VYSOTSKY

As Behind the Dear River, for guitar [2:13]
Traditional Russian
Shall I Come Forth to the River, folk song [3:49]
Daniil Nikitich KASHIN
A Dove Flew to the Valley, for voice & piano [2:45]
Daniil Nikitich KASHIN
You Maidens and Beauties, for voice & piano [3:01]
S. OREKHOV
The Gypsies Were Travelling, song [2:32]
Timofey ZHUCHKOVSKY
We Live in the Fields, song [3:02]
Mikhail VYSOTSKY
The Flowers Have Faded, for guitar [4:57]
Oleg TIMOFEYEV
The Red Sarafan, waltz arrangement for ensemble (after Vysotsky) [2:34]
Mikhail VYSOTSKY
Variations for guitar on Alyabyev's song "The Nightingale" [2:56]
Alexander Egorovich VARLAMOV
Krasnïy Sarafan (The Red Sarafan), for voice & piano [3:15]
Alexander ALYABYEV
The Nightingale [4:07] 1822
Mikhail VYSOTSKY
I Love the Pear from the Orchard for guitar [3:03]
Alexander Egorovich VARLAMOV
Don't You Wake Her at Dawn, for voice & piano [3:18]
Traditional Russian
Barynya (The Landlady) [3:06]
Remember, My Beloved, folk song [4:08]
Oleg TIMOFEYEV
How Did I Upset You?, folk song setting for 2 guitars (after Semion Aksionov) written in collaboration with John Schneiderman.[4:06]
Alexey Nikolayevich VERSTOVSKY
Gypsy Song ("Old husband, fearsome husband..."), for voice & piano [1:40] 1827
Oleg TIMOFEYEV
Oh, It Hurts / I Walked over the Flowers / Don't Walk by My Orchard, medley [5:53]
Talisman: (Etienne Abelin (classical violin); Anne Harley (soprano, co-director); Vadim Kolpakov (Russian 7 string guitar); Oleg Timofeyev (Russian 7 string guitar))
rec. 27 March 2007. DDD
HANSSLER PROFIL PH10027 [60:47]

Experience Classicsonline



Mikhail Vysotsky came of humble parentage - a serf in Imperial Russia. He rose to achieve manumission through his skill with the Russian seven string guitar. In this he was executant, renowned teacher and composer. He more than made his mark in the salons of Moscow and added to his exotic allure through spending much time, late into the night, with gypsy musicians whose ideas and flavours passed through his music. They brought ‘dangerous’ colours and flavours to the aristocracy and the respectable burgers of Moscow.

The idiom is part trembling balalaika territory - though the instruments do not include balalaikas) but much more Donizetti and Bellini. Sentimentality is not seen as a boundary - rather as a virtue. The music recalls many bel canto florid delights as well as Beethoven's romantic Scottish songs and Neapolitan romances.

This medley is essentially a mix of instrumentals and songs. It's well calculated from a genre that could pall if not sufficiently varied. The disc is built around the resonant voice of Anne Harley and the very forwardly plangent resinous sound of the seven string Russian guitar. While the fiddle puts in appearances it is the peppery tang of the guitar that predominates.

Rukin's Shall I come forth? is expertly put across by Harley. Orekhov's The Gypsies were travelling is a sort of cross between Django Reinhardt and Muscovite starry nights. Zhuchkovsky's We Live in the Fields adds a classical violin to the smiling mix with the instrumentalists injecting zingaresco exclamations to the singing.

This disc opens a doorway into Moscow's 19th century infatuation with all things gypsy: the open road, the sensuous, the liberation from the quotidian, the camp fire, the dangerous and the divine. The music enjoyed réclame in Imperial Russia's great cities and on this sampling was populist, unsubtle and full of Tzigane paprika - a slice of alluring exotica from a bygone era. One can see how Liszt, Sarasate and Brahms were attracted to this libertine flame. A Gypsy Moscow series of this music would not be unexpected.

Rob Barnett

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.