Loves Me Not
Kristina Marinova (piano)
rec. 2022, Oktaven Audio LLC, Mount Vernon, USA
Navona NV6526 [71]
You’re young and in love and you get dumped; What do you do?? (erm..asking for a friend). Well obviously you cheer yourself up by listening to sad love songs and decimating the local buttercup population with endless he/she loves me nots until one of them actually gives you the answer you want! In much the same vein Kristina Marinova’s album is the classical answer. As she writes in her booklet notes reflecting my personal belief that music, imbued with sadness, can have therapeutic benefits and help lead the way out of darkness and heal a broken heart. In my own work I have witnessed the therapeutic value of music of any kind so I entirely agree with Ms Marinova.
The repertoire chosen is mostly familiar with a handful of less well known transcriptions including two by the pianist herself. There is enough variety that the programme is not just devoted to melancholy; understated mourning in E minor Préludes by Chopin and Bach in Siloti’s beautiful transcription, overwhelming passion in Rachmaninoff’s élégie or Scriabin’s D flat étude or consolation from Tarrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra played her in the transcription by Marinova.
For the most part these are good performances; Marinova produces a clear, singing line with an occasional taste of rubato. For some items, notably the Widmung and Siciliano transcriptions I would ask for a little more distinction between melody and accompaniment which can blur at times and in the Schubert Impromptu the left hand triplets are a little intrusive. Elsewhere she is more successful, the Rachmaninoff élégie and mélodie and song transcriptions especially so. Her version of How fair this spot is less florid than those by Earl Wild or Vyacheslav Gryaznov, sticking closely to the original as is her choice of Kocsis’s arrangement of the Vocalise which leaves its arabesques for the final appearance of the theme, relating well to Marinova’s description of the piece which ultimately ascends to heaven…where angelic harp flurries soar above the accompaniment. In keeping with the tone of the recital her Scriabin D flat étude is passionate but with restraint, not aiming for the volcanic climaxes so familiar from Horowitz’s performances. Her Chopin is poised and balanced as is the beautiful Gluck Dance of the blessed spirits in Sgambati’s once so popular transcription. I was disappointed with her Debussy Rêverie, so well described in Marinova’s booklet notes but quite earthbound in reality with rather foursquare playing. Otherwise the whole recital is entertaining in its low key manner and it is only the final transcription that doesn’t convince me; Tarrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra is so intimately tied up in the sound of the guitar that a piano transcription makes the repeated notes sound a little too much like a study. Others may disagree and Marinova’s performance does not upset the balance of the recital.
The recorded sound is warm and pleasant, quite closely recorded and the recital is for the most part successful in its aims.
Rob Challinor
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Contents
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Prélude in E minor Op.28 No.4 (1838)
Nocturne in B flat minor Op.9 No.1 (1830-31)
Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) arr. Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914)
Mélodie from Orphée et Eurydice – Dance of the blessed spirits (1774)
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Consolation in D flat major S.172 No.3 (c.1844)
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) arr. Kristina Marinova
How fair this spot Op.21 No.7 (1902)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) arr. Wilhelm Kempff (1895-1991)
Siciliano from the Flute Sonata in E flat major BWV.1031 (c.1730-34)
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Étude in D sharp minor Op.8 No.12 (1894)
Étude in B flat minor Op.8 No.11 (1894)
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Mélodie Op.3 No. 3 (1892)
Élégie Op.3 No.1 (1892)
Robert Schumann (1810-1856) arr. Franz Liszt
Liebeslied – Widmung S.566 (1848)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Impromptu in G flat major D.899 No.3 (1827)
Johann Sebastian Bach arr. Alexander Siloti (1863-1945)
Prelude in E minor BWV.855a (c.1722)
Erik Satie (1866-1925)
Gymnopédie No.1 (1888)
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Rêverie L.68 (1890)
Franz Schubert arr. Franz Liszt
Gretchen am Spinnrade S.558 No.8 (1837-38)
Sergei Rachmaninoff arr. Zoltán Kocsis (1952-2016)
Vocalise Op.34 No.14 (1912/1915)
Francisco Tarrega (1852-1909) arr. Kristina Marinova
Recuerdos de la Alhambra (1899)
