Sunless Loves

Though diverse in character and style, all the works on this album speak of love, as a state where everyone fathoms the vertiginous depths of their loneliness. All eight poems of Brahm’s Op. 57, with their obstinate, fearless eroticism, leave the listener with a subtle archaic and exotic taste. Daumer’s German Romanticism with exotic aromas, helped Brahms create one of his most interesting vocal works. Prokofiev’s Op. 27 features the fragile but quite sharp tone of the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. Published in 1916, this is a brief but extremely colourful work, where every note and every word are necessary. Visionary in his harmony, daring in his nihilistic pessimism, Mussorgsky, in his vocal cycle Sunless, takes hold of the verses of his friend Golenishchev-Kutuzov to create a small but completely sinister universe. Sunless Loves demonstrates Safiropoulou’s varied repertoire and skills, including her first-rate Russian dictation. Her accompanist Andrej Hovr