Mélancolie

Description

"Having different origins is an asset. Growing up in a multilingual environment fosters cognitive flexibility... I was fortunate to live between Romania and Germany," says Konstantin Krimmel. Together with his long-time collaborator Ammiel Bushakevitz, who also has "mixed origins," he wanted to bring together the composers Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and Eusebius Mandyczewski (1857-1929), who met in Vienna in the late 1870s and maintained a close friendship: on one side, the established composer from distant Hamburg, author of nearly 200 Lieder and vocal works; on the other, the young student from faraway Bukovina, son of an Orthodox priest, who grew up speaking Romanian on his mother's side and Ukrainian on his father's, a pupil of a disciple of Mendelssohn. His eighteen Romanian Songs were published in 1885 in a bilingual Romanian-German edition, with texts by Vasile Alecsandri (1821–1890), "a grandiose poet, who wrote in a very vivid manner and in close connection with nature. A nature that I love and draw from as a source of interpretation at every recital," says Krimmel. They are recorded here for the first time in their original language, Romanian. The two composers share a love for Schubert—Mandyczewski was the first editor of his complete works—a fascination for folk songs, and a taste for melancholy, which is felt throughout this program.