MAGDALENA KOŽENÁ / KIRILL GERSTEIN

Janáček’s passion for the folk culture of his native Lachian region, on the Moravian-Silesian border, was lifelong; also respect-filled, hence providing only the simplest of accompaniments to the 53 Moravian folk songs he assembled between 1892 and 1901, so as not to distract from their essential characteristics. There’s a folklike simplicity and humour to the poems of Eduard Mörike (1804-1875); Hugo Wolf’s musically multifaceted 1888 settings of them include ‘Abschied’ (Farewell), in which the poet describes kicking a critic down the stairs, prompting a merry Viennese waltz. Composed in 1916 to texts by modern symbolist poets, Rachmaninoff’s six Op.38 songs with their luxurious textures and chromaticism were for soprano Nina Joshetz, inspired by the folky timbre of her voice. The chromaticism of Schoenberg’s 1901 Brettl-Lieder is perhaps even more intense, but here it ramps up the music’s cabaret flirtiness.