Xavier de Maistre - Moldau: The Romantic Solo Album (2015) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Moldau: The Romantic Solo Album” contains some of the most beautiful and well-known pieces from Russia and Bohemia. The composers use their Russian roots to create their own musical language containing elements of emotionally charged joy and the unmistakable feeling of melancholy, which conjures up entire landscapes of musical sounds. With this repertory Xavier de Maistre shows the rich palette of sounds which a harp can accomplish and which is arguably his most distinctive feature.

“This was a natural choice of works since the Slav soul is a part of my musical world. In spite of – or precisely because of – the fact that opposites attract, Slav excess and effusiveness seem to be the very antithesis of the restraint and Cartesian ideals of my French roots” says Xavier de Maistre. “It is not easy to define Slavism in music, but one constant feature is the dominant inspiration that has come from folk music. The Slav melodic genius has few equivalents elsewhere and is something that I have always found overwhelming. The list of great composers that I have dreamt of bringing back to life in order to ask them to write for my instrument is a long one, but at the top of it I would place Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky, since their musical language has always struck me as likely to revolutionize writing for the harp.”

TRACKLIST

Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884)

1 The Moldau from Má vlast 10:08

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

2 Le Rossignol After the Song by Alyabyev 04:47

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

3 Aubade (Morning serenade), No. 5 from Romeo and Juliet: Suite No. 3, Op. 101 02:55
4 Montagues and Capulets, No. 1 from Romeo and Juliet: Suite No. 2, Op. 64ter 03:14

Anatoly Lyadov (1855-1914)

5 A Musical Snuffbox in A Major for Piano, Op. 32 01:58

Ekaterina Walter- Kühne (1870-1930)

6 Fantasy on Themes from Eugene Onegin by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Op. 81 08:40

Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

7 Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy from The Nutcracker-Suite, Op. 71a 02:10

Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978)

8 Oriental Dance 02:13
9 Toccata 03:02

Michail Glinka (1804-1857)

10 Nocturne in E-Flat Major 04:21

Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904)

11 I. Moderato - Più mosso 04:25
12 II. Molto vivace 03:37
13 III. Allegretto 04:27
14 IV. Andante 02:43
15 V. Allegro 02:46

PERSONNEL
Xavier de Maistre, harp