In 1925-26 the French publisher Heugel brought out three volumes of 24 songs by the young Russian composer Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977), all setting poems by the 'Acmeist' Russian poet, Sergei Gorodetsky (1884-1967) - Tcherepnin's Opp. 15, 16 and 17. Not until 2014, when Tatyana Kebuladze, the pianist on this recording, examined the composer's manuscript in the archives of the Sacher Foundation in Basel was it realized that those three recueils were the tips of a much larger iceberg: a cycle of 35 settings of the 37 poems in Gorodetsky's collection My Flowering Staff, plus an anonymous epilogue - one of the most extensive song-cycles in musical history. The songs themselves are audibly in the tradition of Tchaikovsky and other such Romantic Russian composers, but with a degree of psychological insight conveyed through the harmonic piquancy typical of the new century.

Tracklist:

My Flowering Staff: Epigraph, Op. 17 No. 1
My Flowering Staff: No. 1, O God Of Days, Do Not Release Your Violins, Op. 15 No. 3
My Flowering Staff: No. 2, If Only I Could Hear, Op. 15 No. 4
My Flowering Staff: No. 3, I Contemplated You, O Andromeda
My Flowering Staff: No. 4, How Damned Is My Beloved Life, Op. 15 No. 2
My Flowering Staff: No. 5, The Millstones Have Cooled, Op. 15 No. 5
My Flowering Staff: No. 6, I Love The Feminine Water
My Flowering Staff: No. 7, Forgive Me The Enticing Mist
My Flowering Staff: No. 8, Farewell, Night!, Op. 15 No. 6
My Flowering Staff: No. 9, The Struggle To Voice Words, Op. 15 No. 1
My Flowering Staff: No. 10, In Agitation, As I Touch The Morning Lyre, Op. 16 No. 2
My Flowering Staff: No. 11, I Am Dreaming Of The Country, Op. 16 No. 5
My Flowering Staff: No. 12, In The Wild Forest, Op. 17 No. 2
My Flowering Staff: No. 13, My Soul Is Happy To Hear
My Flowering Staff: No. 14, Some Of The Songs In My Soul
My Flowering Staff: No. 15, Perhaps Life Is Broken In Half, Op. 17 No. 3
My Flowering Staff: No. 16, In The Evening Quiet Hour
My Flowering Staff: No. 17, I Know Only One Thing About God, Op. 17 No. 5
My Flowering Staff: No. 18, Lost Souls!, Op. 17 No. 9
My Flowering Staff: No. 19, My Endless Grief, Op. 16 No. 8
My Flowering Staff: No. 20, The Happy Laughter, Op. 17 No. 8
My Flowering Staff: No. 21, With Tormented Spirit, Op. 16 No. 4
My Flowering Staff: No. 22a, Piano Solo
My Flowering Staff: No. 22b, O Angry Idle Voice
My Flowering Staff: No. 23, Improbable Sunsets
My Flowering Staff: No. 24, I Do Not Know How To Be Cruel
My Flowering Staff: No. 25, The Arrogant Silence Of Evening Rivers, Op. 17 No. 7
My Flowering Staff: No. 26, If You Want, Take From The Universe, Op. 16 No. 6
My Flowering Staff: No. 27, I Beg, I Sing, I Adjure, Op. 17 No. 6
My Flowering Staff: No. 28, For More Than Ten Centuries
My Flowering Staff: No. 29, The Flags Were Waved, Op. 17 No. 4
My Flowering Staff: No. 30, To Sit Endlessly And Weave, Op. 16 No. 3
My Flowering Staff: No. 31, The Solemn Dance
My Flowering Staff: No. 32, Again, I Have A Desire, Op. 16 No. 7
My Flowering Staff: No. 33, Melancholia Of The Winter Day
My Flowering Staff: No. 34, My Covenant With The Almighty, Op. 16 No. 1
My Flowering Staff: Epilogue, Op. 17 No. 10

UPC: 5060113445377
Label: Toccata
Release Date: 5.1.20
Format: CD

Tcherepnin / Dukach / Kebuladze - My Flowering Staff (CD)