On Russian texts.
I. Five Songs on texts by: Evgeni Boratynski, John Keats, Alexander Pushkin and Taras Shevtschenko
1. Poetry heals the ailing spirit (Boratynski)
2. There where storms and bad weather (Boratynski)
3. La Belle Dame sans merci (Keats, russian by B. Levik)
4. Melancholy time! Enchantment for the eyes!) (Pushkin)
5. Farewell, o world! Farewell, o Earth) (Shevtschenko)
II. Eleven Songs on texts after Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Fiodor Tjutshev, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Sergei Jessenin
1. What is my name to you? (Pushkin)
2. I will tell you with complete directness (Mandelstam)
3. I drink to the health of Mary’s health (Pushkin)
4. Through waving mists (Pushkin)
5. A solitary sail shines white (Lermontov)
6. I met you ... (Tiutshev)
7. The isle (Shelley)
8. Indescribable blue, tender (Jessenin)
9. Autumn song (Jessenin)
10. Swamps and marshes (Jessenin)
11. Winter evening (Pushkin)
III. Three Songs after Lermontov
1. When the yellowing cornfield stirs
2. I go out alone on to the road
3. The mountain summits
IV. Five Songs on texts after Pushkin, Tiutshev, Ossip Mandelstam and Vassili Shukovski
1. Elegy (Verses composed at night, during insomnia) (Pushkin)
2. Chorale (God has taken all away from me in punishment) (Tiutshev)
3. Meditation (It is time, my friend) (Pushkin)
4. Ode (And Schubert on water) (Mandelstam)
5. Postludium (Don’t talk with sorrow about the dear companions) (Shukovski)
Duration: 110 minutes.
First performance in 1978 in Moscow by Valery Piankov (voice) and Valentin Silvestrov (piano)
And in 1978 in Leningrad by Juri Oleinik (voice) and Valentin Silvestrov (piano)
First Concert performance: 9 March 1985 in Moscow by Sergei Jakovenko (baritone) and Ilia Scheps (piano).
CD ECM New Series 9821424: Sergey Yakovenko (baritone), Ilya Scheps (piano)
CD Megadisc MDC 7840/41: Alexei Martinov (baritone), Alexei Lubimov (piano)