Sviridov’s Russia Adrift (also translated as Russia Cast Adrift – the Russian is Otchalivshaya Rus’; either will work) is becoming something of a classic outside the composer’s native land. Having recently reviewed an orchestral version made for Dmitri Hvorostovsky (Delos, 6/17), who had already recorded the work in its piano version, I am delighted to come across this recording of an arrangement by Leonid Rezetdinov for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. It’s just as powerful as the original version: Mila Shkirtil has an expressive range every bit the equal of Hvorostovsky and the additional resonance of the ‘Russian alto’ tradition as manifest in Rachmaninov’s Vigil and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky – it should also not be forgotten that it was Elena Obraztsova who gave the first performance.

In addition, we have a beautiful three-movement ‘small cantata’ to words by Pasternak, Sneg idyot, from 1965, in which the Rimsky-Korsakov Music College Female Choir and the Boys of the St Petersburg Radio and Television Children’s Choir show their mettle, and Music for Chamber Orchestra, from a year earlier. This latter suggests in many ways a mixture between Shostakovich’s The Assault on Beautiful Gorky and First Piano Concerto, but it undoubtedly has its own strength of character, thus providing much more than a mere interlude between the cantata and the song-cycle. An important addition to the ever-increasing Sviridov discography.