Try not to be put off by the Mills and Boon title and cover (overleaf): there is an intelligent idea here, namely a survey of a baker’s dozen of Russian composers setting Western poets. On the whole, the choice is of good poetry, as one can usually expect when composers turn to a foreign language. That is not to say that those here represented employ a foreign musical language, though an exception is Anton Rubinstein. Of German-Jewish birth, he is close to home ground setting Eichendorff, and not surprisingly Schumann lies at the back of his invention with Waldeinsamkeit. His Italian canzonette are less successful; the composer who catches the manner best is Glinka, whose Italian travels revealed much to him. There is an interesting comparison between Taneyev and Medtner, both of whom set Goethe’s Gefunden, a lyric about a flower plucked from the wild and taken to bloom in a garden (no comment on the propriety of that). Taneyev writes a charmingly light melody for what is a light fancy; Medtner takes it more seriously, and indeed emerges through the items here chosen as a considerable song writer, with a gift for seeking out the darker side of Goethe in other songs.
Naturally the influence that comes through with several composers is French, not consciously embraced but absorbed into the tradition of the Russian romans. Tchaikovsky was the greatest master here, but there are charming examples from Glazunov, Grechaninov and Borodin, and Dargomizhsky contributes some lightheartedness. French is not, as it happens, the language in which Sergei Larin is most at home: he does better with German and Italian. Eleonora Bekova accompanies sensitively, though the recording is occasionally a little heavy-handed with the bass. It is an interesting recital, indicating how much European literary influences played a part, especially, of course, in the westernising strain of 19th-century Russian artists.'