Tchaikovsky’s romances are small poems the essence of which is not reduced to mere personal sentiment. These touching and sincere pages of the composer’s creative work imbued with the philosophy of life are close to everyone. Being brought together the unsophisticated music language, esthetic perfection of the form, diversity and originality of the melodies and richness of the accompaniment which is often independent in its artistic significance make up Tchaikovsky’s romance style.
The composer wrote romances and songs throughout his career. It is song that nourishes the rest of Tchaikovsky’s musical genres. The song element forms the very heart of the composer’s music no matter what genre it belongs to, while romance is its immediate expression. Many arias and cantilenas are sisters to romances. Not infrequently the melodic elements that could be found earlier in romances appear in Tchaikovsky’s operas and symphonies.
Tchaikovsky wrote over 100 romances, many of which were set to the poetry of Fyodor Tyutchev, Lev Mey, Alexei Apukhtin and Daniil Rathaus. Tchaikovsky was personally acquainted with poet Alexei Pleshcheyev whose poems time and again he used for his romances – they both were members of the Artistic Circle. A few romances were set to the poetry of Alexei Tolstoy as they won the composer with their lyricism and musicality. Another number of romances were set to the poetry of Afanassiy Fet. “I consider him a poet of absolute genius, – Tchaikovsky wrote. – In his best moments, Fet crosses the limits assigned to poetry and takes a bold step into our area. That is why Fet often reminds me of Beethoven.”
The composer sought to embrace various song genres of his time. Along with pure lyricism of an exalted kind, his work is inhibited with true dramatic qualities when folk tunes alternate with waltzes and genre songs take the places of solemn hymns.
His early romances, Op. 6, composed in November-December 1869 are full of sublime love lyricism with a whole world of emotions overflowing – joy and pain, stateliness and fluttering exhilaration, deep melancholy and precise emotions, as well as laconism and faultless direction of expressive means. These romances were designated with a combination of a songful and natural melody with sometimes complicated and artistically independent accompaniment, which was so characteristic for Tchaikovsky. Within small intervals the composer achieves a great melodic expressiveness. The early 1870's were the time when more diverse fairy-tale and mythological plots appeared. Throughout his life Tchaikovsky drew his music material from the environment. One will easily recognize intonations of drawling Russian and Ukrainian songs, Italian serenades or gypsy romances.
Tchaikovsky's early romances already showed signs of symphonism. This quality is not just in a special intensity of the tunes and well-developed forms of accompaniment, but also in a great imagery and efficiency of the music, in its dramatic force, which turns many of the compositions of this kind into small dramas of an instrumental and vocal mould.
The romances featured on this disc are performed by such outstanding vocalists of Russia as Sergei Lemishev, Irina Arkhipova, Elena Obraztsova, Evgeny Nesterenko, Nina Fomina, Yuri Mazurok and Muslim Magomaev.
