Modest Mussorgsky: Unorthodox Music

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The surprises come thick and fast…Her bright soprano can be a bit squeezed in the more conventional love-lyrics, but revels in the unorthodox, and Glynn ranges the colour-palette too. The presentation... — BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2021, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 22nd Oct 2021
Catalogue No: AV2457
Label: Avie
Length: 69 minutes

Presto Editor's Choice

October 2021
BBC Music Magazine

Christmas 2021

Choral & Song Choice
The Guardian Classical Albums of the Year

2021

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Mussorgsky: The He-Goat

Work length2:30

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Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Nanny and Me

Work length1:15

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Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: The Nursery

Work length3:25

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Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)

I. With Nanny

Track length1:47

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II. In the Corner

Track length1:38

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Mussorgsky: Memories of Childhood: II. Nanny Locks Me in a Dark Cupboard

Work length1:31

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Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: The Nursery

Work length5:20

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Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)

IV. With the Doll

Track length1:56

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VI. Hobby Horse

Track length3:24

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Mussorgsky: Porte-en-seigne Polka

Work length3:01

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Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Desire

Work length2:39

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Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Impromptu passionné

Work length2:33

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Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Iz slyoz moikh (From my tears)

Work length1:41

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Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Gopak (from Sorochintsy Fair)

Work length1:51

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Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Noch'

Work length4:16

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Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Gopak (from Sorochintsy Fair)

Work length3:11

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Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Oh, How Your Eyes Look At Me Sometimes

Work length2:36

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Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: You drunken sot!

Work length3:01

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Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Intermezzo in modo classico

Work length3:33

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Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Songs and Dances of Death: III. Trepak

Work length5:02

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Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Album Leaf: Méditation

Work length4:17

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Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Sadly rustled the leaves

Work length3:40

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Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition: Cum mortuis in lingua mortua

Work length2:39

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Christopher Glynn (piano)

Mussorgsky: Sunless

Work length5:54

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Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)

I. Within Four Walls

Track length1:33

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VI. On the River

Track length4:21

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Mussorgsky: Rêverie

Work length5:13

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Christopher Glynn (piano)

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Interview, Claire Booth on Mussorgsky

8th December 2021

The British soprano talks to Katherine about her new album with pianist Christopher Glynn, which intersperses some of the composer's lesser-known songs with a selection of his piano pieces.

Soprano Claire Booth and pianist Christopher Glynn follow their critically acclaimed collaborations Percy Grainger: Folk Music and Edvard Grieg: Lyric Music with Modest Mussorgsky: Unorthodox Music, interspersing a selection of the Russian composer's under-represented songs with solo piano works.

First Percy Grainger: Folk Music, then Edvard Grieg: Lyric Music, and now Modest Mussorgsky: Unorthodox Music a logical sequence in soprano Claire Booth's and pianist Christopher Glynn's growing AVIE discography, interspersing a selection of under-represented songs with solo piano works by this most individual and idiosyncratic of all Russian composers.

Claire and Chris approach Modest Mussorgsky: Unorthodox Music in the spirit of a storyteller, tracing an arc of life from innocence to experience that is arranged across a prologue and four "scenes" Nursery, Youthful Years, Marriage and Loneliness taking their cue from the colourful tableaux of the composer's operas. Individual numbers from the great song cycles Youthful Years, Nursery, Sunless, and Songs and Dances of Death are juxtaposed with works from Mussorgsky's more unorthodox output, all delivered by Claire and Chris with disarming affect.

CLAIRE BOOTH

"An actor-singer who can raise the dramatic heat as soon as she enters the stage" (Opera Now), "that most questing, resourceful and intelligent of sopranos" (Daily Telegraph), British soprano Claire Booth has been widely acclaimed for her "radiant, rapturous, wonderfully nuanced performances" and voice of "piercing purity [and] luscious richness" (The Scotsman). She is renowned for her breadth of repertoire, and for the vitality and musicianship that she brings to the operatic stage and concert platform, with a versatility that encompasses repertoire spanning from Monteverdi and Handel, through Rossini, Berg and Britten, to a fearless commitment to the music of the present day.

CHRISTOPHER GLYNN

Chris is a Grammy award-winning pianist and accompanist, praised for his 'breathtaking sensitivity' (Gramophone), 'irrepressible energy, wit and finesse' (The Guardian), 'perfect fusion of voice and piano' (BBC Music Magazine) and as 'an inspired programmer' (The Times). He is also Artistic Director of the Ryedale Festival, programming around sixty events each year in beautiful and historic venues across North Yorkshire.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

"Few singers alive can spin a yarn like Booth can, especially with her regular pianist Christopher Glynn. (Her) voice is a character that transfixes all by itself, presenting a bright, beguilingly androgynous, ageless image of the protagonist". - Gramophone, February 2021 (Edvard Grieg: Lyric Music AV2403)

Reviews

Christmas 2021

The surprises come thick and fast…Her bright soprano can be a bit squeezed in the more conventional love-lyrics, but revels in the unorthodox, and Glynn ranges the colour-palette too. The presentation is both picture- and text-perfect; classy work all round.

January 2022

Booth’s voice is lighter than one is used to in this repertoire but has all of the necessary equipment, vocal and linguistic...Booth’s total immersion allows her to bypass the kind of superficial effects that have made Boris Christoff’s recordings age strangely.

October 2021

What a breath of fresh air this album is - partly because a good helping of the songs here are relative rarities on disc, and partly because it's so unusual to here a light, bright soprano in better-known works such as the Songs and Dances of Death and Sunless (excerpts from which feature on Booth and Glynn's cleverly-conceived journey from cradle to grave). Booth brings incisive diction and bags of character to everything.

28th October 2021

Booth brings each song to life with operatic vividness…Every one of them becomes a miniature scena, while the piano pieces that Glynn places between them sometimes offer contrast, sometimes reinforcement. The whole thing is a joy, brilliantly conceived and presented with tremendous panache.

Modest Mussorgsky: Unorthodox Music

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Interview, Claire Booth on Mussorgsky

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