A Fearful Fairy Tale
Yuri BAGRI (b.1948)
Fairy tale about the forgotten homeland: I. The first snow [1:03] II. Winter dance [2:08]
Nikolai MYASKOVSKY (1881-1950)
Yellowed leaves, Op. 31 (1928) [16:47]
Elena FIRSOVA (b. 1950)
A fearful fairy tale, Op. 171 (2019) [5:45]
Serge PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Tales of an old grandmother, Op. 31 (1918): I. Moderato [1:55] II. Andantino [1:14]
Leoš JANÁČEK (1854-1928)
Pohádka (fairy tale), JW VII/5 (1923) [11:36]
Alfred SCHNITTKE (1934-1998)
Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 129: I. Largo (1987) [6:24]
Nicolai MEDTNER (1880-1951)
Three tales, Op. 9: II. Allegro alla serenata, con alcuna licenza (1904-05) [4:07]
Four tales, Op. 34: II. Allegro cantabile e leggiero (1916-17) [2:30]
Four tales, Op. 26: III. Narrante a piacere (1910-12) [2:26]
Two tales, Op. 20: II. Pesante. Minaccioso (1909) [4:03]
Helena Basilova (piano), Maya Fridman (cello)
rec. 2019, Muziekgebouw, Eindhoven
TRPTK TTK0041 [60:10]
Helena Basilova’s release, housed in slim book-sized format, is a solo piano album based on folklore, most of it from the country of her birth, Russia. It includes two charming, brief, deft and youthful pieces from Yuri Bagri’s cycle Fairytale about the Forgotten Homeland, dedicated to the young Basilova when she moved to the Netherlands, so as to remind her of her native soil. It also explores – in fragmentary or in complete form – other works rooted in tale and lore. She teams with cellist Maya Fridman, too, for a performance of Pohádka.
One of the most valuable things about her recital is that she includes the seven pieces that constitute Myaskovsky’s Op.31 cycle called Yellowed Leaves. Each piece is charged with its own particular atmosphere and from the opening Andante, with its plangent chords, through the strongly charged Romance to a crisp woodland scherzo, with a slow trio, there’s much to admire. Myaskovsky also admits some gently impressionistic drizzle and there is trademark reflective romanticism as well as less encountered frolic in the penultimate vivo. The final movement brings forth bell peals, Orthodox chant, and a noble and characteristically grave eloquence familiar from his orchestral music.
Elena Firsova’s brief A Fearful Fairy Tale was dedicated to Basilova, and it’s full of birdsong and church bells, with textures alternating between light and more visceral elements. Pohádka is the only other work to be heard in full and Basilova and Fridman give a well-paced and adeptly phrased reading; sensitively and thoughtfully balanced too. The remainder of the programme consists of extracts from larger works. Thus, there’s the opening Largo from Schnittke’s Piano Sonata No.1, where she captures the treble glint and chorale-like nobility very well, as well as two movements from Prokofiev’s Tales of an Old Grandmother.
She also plays a single piece from four of Medtner’s sets of Tales, choosing for example the fluent and expressively effusive second of the Op.34 set and the strongly hewn pesante second piece from Op.20.
She has been attractively recorded in the Muziekgebouw in Eindhoven though her pedaling action is sometimes audible. I dare say some will baulk at the extracted pieces from Medtner’s cycles as well as the incomplete Prokofiev and Schnittke, but the selected movements do support the album’s theme and Basilova proves a thoughtful and sensitive guide throughout.
Jonathan Woolf
