Claire and Chris approach Modest Mussorgsky: Unorthodox Music in the spirit of a storyteller, tracing an arc of life from innocence to experience that is arranged across a prologue and four “scenes” – Nursery, Youthful Years, Marriage and Loneliness– taking their cue from the colourful tableaux of the composer’s operas.
Individual numbers from the great song cycles – Youthful Years, Nursery, Sunless, and Songs and Dances of Death – are juxtaposed with works from Mussorgsky’s more unorthodox output, all delivered by Claire and Chris with disarming affect.
“Operatic vividness and tremendous panache – A ‘cradle-to-grave songspiel’ describing the arc of a woman’s life is brilliantly conceived by soprano Booth and pianist Glynn… The whole thing is a joy” ★★★★★ Classical Albums of the Year – The Guardian