“From Afar” - New album release from Antonina Levina
Album “From Afar” is quite eclectic in its composition, both in styles and in times of the music presented. It includes several “old romances”: some of them never lost their popularity, like “Dark eyes”, while others are forgotten even by connoisseurs and performers of this genre and cannot be found on YouTube channels (“Aroma of tuberoses”, “Guitar, songs and wine”). For those rare jewels our recording is the world premiere.
I feel personally close with one of the authors presented in this edition – Isa Kremer. There are certain parallels between our fates, that cannot leave me indifferent: she also had to leave Russia in the time of political and social turmoil, was classically trained as an opera singer, yet she wrote her own pop songs. Both of us have connection with a special city – Odessa, and both of us have lived in many different countries. We recorded one of her “intimate songs” – “Madam Lulu”.
The other woman composer in this album, who was also trained as a classical singer, is Spanish/French diva Pauline Viardot. Her role for development and exchanges between European and Russian cultures is yet to be adequately appreciated by musicologists. She was so fluent in Russian language, that she was singing in Russian without an accent, and often wrote romances on the lyrics of Russian poets even more convincing and true, than the Russian composers themselves. One of the proofs of that is her romance “Invocation” on the poetry of Alexander Pushkin (“Oh, if it’s true that at night”).
Album “From Afar” is an expression of nostalgy, both for our far away native land, and for the old times, which will never return.
I hope, our recording will create more interest to Pauline Viardot’s personality. Just imagine, she wrote music to Pushkin’s verses “Do not sing, oh, beauty, to me”, that is mostly known as Rachmaninov’s romance, almost 20 years before the Russian genius! (Her version is in French, it is called “La Georgeinne”). I sing this romance in both languages to bring attention of those who know Rachmaninov’s version to this remarkable fact. Both of Pauline Viardot’s romances were recorded with Montreal pianist Victoria Mnatsakanova.
Several songs here serve as our tribute to popular music of Soviet times. Two of them (“Waltz about waltz” and tango “Do you remember our meetings?”) are from the repertoire of a legendary Soviet singer Klavdia Shulzhenko. Both of these songs take part in my musical show about her.
"I dreamed of Klavdia Shulzhenko" - Music show
It took me some courage to include three songs of my own. I wrote them at the age of 13-14 to the lyrics of my father Yefim Levin, while still living on the peninsula Kamchatka. Indeed, they are the most “From Afar” (geographically). After being forgotten for more than 30 years, these songs knocked the door of my present life, and the nostalgy literally overflew me. I took it as a sign, that they must be included in this album, too. Hopefully, they will find their ways to people’s hearts, bringing us back in 1980s: naïve, sincere and shamelessly romantic…
My special thanks are for the team of wonderful musicians, who were not only performing this music with me, but arranging it, as well: pianist Alexandre Solopov and duo “Gzhel” – Irina Lutcenko (dombra) and Alexey Lutcenko (bayan/Russian accordion).
