Dmitri Hvorostovsky - "Songs and Dances of Death"

Montreal 1998

Dmitri Hvorostovsky in Concert singing the third song from the Cycle "Songs and Dances of Death" composed by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky.
Montreal Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Charles Édouard Dutoit

"Trepak" (1875)

"A drunken peasant stumbles outside into the snow, and becomes caught in a blizzard. As he perishes he dreams of summer fields."

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Dmitri
• Hvorostovsky
• Charles
• Dutoit
• Montreal
• 1998
• Mussorgsky
• Songs
• and
• Dances
• of
• Death
• Concert
• Trepak

[Teqdor]

Super.bravo Mussorgsky,bravo Hvorostovsky!!

[StarRaft]

this is very nice. but it's not just "trepak", it's the 3rd and 4th songs of the cycle, the last one is "the field marshall." thanks for posting this.

[a058852]

Bravo Hvorostovsky! He is so excellent here; similar to a great recording by Sergei Leferkus, who is even more evil - as it should be in this song. Hvorostovsky's voice really shines here, and his breathing problems are not noticeable at all. And what a great sardonic poem! It is in a way a funny song :)

[aarandir]

@DustBGD89 Mussorgsky is ****ing fantastic. An amazing composer, I was in awe the first time I heard the coronation scene of Boris Godunov, I travelled from London to Hamburg just to watch his opera Khovanschina. This man was a genius and a greatly under appreciated one. I wrote an essay on him last year and his vocal techniques and settings are decades ahead of their time. A brilliant man.

[LJBSasha]

[...contd.]

According to G.P. Vishñévskaja (see her autobiography), Musórgskiy was a believer (Orthodox Christian), at least to some extent. Who apparently didn't believe was the orchestrator of these songs, D.D. Shostakóvich, which is apparently why he emphases matters with the brass and percussion - and in the last piece, the 'col-legno' string accompaniment right after the singer introduces the figure of Death.

[LJBSasha]

@DustBGD89:  I disagree with you here! The words of Arsjéñiy Goljeñíshchjev-Kutúzov deal with this particular, present-day age: they don't address what the age to come deals with, which is an entirely different matter.

[Contd...]

[DustBGD89]

But, I should add, these songs from the "Songs and Dances of Death" cycle are the most pessimistic ones ever. How ever, he is realist- does not believe in the afterlife, resurrection, re-incarnation,...

[DustBGD89]

Mussorgsky`s songs are just too special. He broke all XIX century`s tradions and cleared path to XX century and contemporary music- both with harmonies and form on the one, and with the vocal technique on the other side.

[beethomozart]

exactly these are the last 2 songs of the cycle composed by Modest Musssorgsky between 1875-77 and orchestrated by his country fellowman admirer and also great composer Shostakovich, this bass interpreter is really good with a dark voice exactly was is needed for Mussorgsky kind of music