Sergei Lieferkus' second volume of the songs of Mussorgsky has his tough but tender singing of Cruel Death; his heartrending singing of The Misunderstood One; his world-weary singing of Misfortune; his deeply beautiful singing of The Spirit of Heaven; his ravishing singing of Vision; and the dead end of the street, heartbreaking singing of From My Tears. It is kind of like listening to Sinatra's "Only the Lonely" at quarter to three when there's no one in the place except you and me. But the closing six songs of the disc ...
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Sergei Lieferkus' second volume of the songs of Mussorgsky has his tough but tender singing of Cruel Death; his heartrending singing of The Misunderstood One; his world-weary singing of Misfortune; his deeply beautiful singing of The Spirit of Heaven; his ravishing singing of Vision; and the dead end of the street, heartbreaking singing of From My Tears. It is kind of like listening to Sinatra's "Only the Lonely" at quarter to three when there's no one in the place except you and me. But the closing six songs of the disc take the whole recital to an even greater depth of despair. Lieferkus has the technique to sing the songs, the voice to put them across, and the guts to climb into their skin. Lieferkus handles the fusion of recitative and aria, Mussorgsky's heightened speech-melody, with consummate skill. Although his voice is not the darkest instrument, his expressivity more than compensates for his less than sepulchral tone. And his interpretation captures all the hopeless loneliness of Mussorgsky's...
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