Chopin's heart belongs to Warsaw - quite literally: it lies as a relic in the Church of the Holy Cross. References abound to murmurings of the homeland on the lips of the dying Chopin, and many musicians remain convinced that the composer did, indeed, write from the heart only when he wrote in the musical language of his native realm, in mazurka and polonaise. And in his songs. Written on the margin of his piano works, they were never intended for publication: these were Chopin's own intimate letters. And this latest recital by the Lodz-born mezzo, Urszula Kryger, shapes them lovingly into two groups: the love songs, and the patriotic laments.
The dark core of melancholy in Kryger's voice is fine-tuned to the Slavic melodic contours of a song like The sad stream. And her instinctive grasp of both musical and verbal inflection makes for a beautifully understated performance of Melodya, Chopin's last, heartfelt song of exile. Gentle mazurkas like Handsome lad and The wish give pianist Charles Spencer the opportunity to indulge in a frisky interlude and postlude or two. And, together with Kryger's agile mezzo, he relishes the cantering hoofbeats of The warrior, and the drama of The bridegroom where Ukrainian folk rhythms meet the night ride of an Erl-King head-on.
Chopin's own Mazurkas were rifled by his friend, the Spanish singer Pauline Viardot, who commissioned a minor French poet to write lyrics to a handful of them. She, in turn, ornamented them liberally, and the result was a set of beguiling, unashamedly sentimental salon pieces, five of which are sampled here.'