'Russian Voices' was introduced by Sholto Kynoch, Artistic Director of the Oxford Lieder Festival, as an evening of romances, mainly cello and songs, as part of King's Place's ongoing Cello Unwrapped series. Ranging from a very early Rachmaninov Romance in F minor to a bleak late song cycle by Shostakovich, the recital explored the depths and layers of sentiment of the Russian mind over a century of upheaval.
After the teenage Rachmaninov, played with lyrical cantabile by cellist Guy Johnston, his line interwove in the second of a set of Six Romances by Arensky, an older colleague of Tchaikovsky. Indeed the tone was not far from Eugene Onegin, with unfulfilled dreams and fleeting love. Bass-baritone Michael Mofidian's sombre-hued voice, with sustained legato and expressive throughout his wide range, although initially stiff of bearing and phrasing, warmed in the later songs, “What is it you dream of” and “At times I have seen”, with their imagery of stars.
Stars also shone in Pauline Viardot's song “The Stars” to verses by the leading Russian poet Afanasy Fet, unacknowledged in the programme. Viardot, member of the Garcia musical family and a distinguished mezzo and salon hostess, was unexpected in this recital, but she spoke fluent Russian and Turgenev was part of her ménage. Joan Rodgers's idiomatic soprano and the surging cello obbligato were revelatory in this symbolist paean.
The first of two works dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich was Prokofiev's 1950 Cello Sonata in C major , with its darkly brooding first movement given full articulation by Kynoch and Johnston, seemingly looking back to an earlier Romantic era that recalls Rachmaninov, with silvery bells in the piano right-hand. The Scherzo and Trio in Prokofiev's caustic, sarcastic manner, gave some relief after the preceding soulfulness, with its subversive use of the DSCH motif, Shostakovich's musical signature, dancing on the edge in the repressive Stalinist era. The C major finale avoided empty triumphalism, with its wide ranging tonality, brilliantly executed passage work and rhythmic punchiness.