Various Composers - George (Sonya Yoncheva)

Information

1. Frédéric Chopin - Casta Diva in E major in E Major
2. Frédéric Chopin - Echo de "Casta diva"
3. Ruggero Leoncavallo - Nuit de décembre
4. Léo Delibes - Chanson espagnole, "Les filles de Cadix"
5. Frédéric Chopin - 3 Nocturnes, Op. 9: No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Andante
6. Frédéric Chopin - Echo du Nocturne précédent
7. Jacques Offenbach - Fantasio, Act I Scene 5: No. 2, Ballade, "Voyez dans la nuit brune" (Fantasio)
8. Pauline Viardot - 6 Mélodies: No. 5, Madrid, VWV 1136
9. Pauline Viardot - 6 Morceaux, VWV 3003: No. 1 in A Major, Romance
10. Anonymous - Lettre à Marie Dorval
11. Francesco Paolo Tosti - Ninon
12. Pauline Viardot - 12 Mazourkes de Frédéric Chopin: No. 8, Faible cœur !, VWV 4028
13. Pauline Viardot - 12 Mazourkes de Frédéric Chopin: No. 6, Séparation, VWV 4022
14. Franz Liszt - 3 Liebesträume, S. 541: No. 3 in A-Flat Major, "O lieb so lang du lieben kannst"
15. Franz Liszt - Echo to Liebestraum S. 541: No. 3 in A-Flat Major, "O lieb so lang du lieben kannst"
16. Pauline Viardot - Les Bohémiennes. Duo d'après les Danses Hongroises de Brahms

Sonya Yoncheva, soprano

Olga Zado, piano

Marina Viotti, mezzo-soprano

Adam Taubitz, violin

Date: 2025

Label: Naive

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Sonya Yoncheva has long been fascinated by George Sand. Writer, dramaturg and literary critic, a journalist and an intellectual, the lover of Alfred de Musset and then of Frédéric Chopin as well as being a friend of Franz Liszt, Pauline Viardot and Marie Dorval, and beyond her remarkable destiny as a woman blessed with the ‘glorious and complete independence’ which in her age was reserved solely for men, Sand embodies the entire spirit, the essence even, of the 19th century.

It is in the first place her boldness, approaching the intrepid, which appeals to the Bulgarian soprano. Sand showed daring for all of her life, and what a fount of inspiration her writings are, on all kinds of topics. Whether political, social, cultural, artistic, how pertinent they are, and how their vibrant, trenchant language dazzles.

George Sand loved the arts unconditionally. And so this programme opens the doors to us, revealing her artistic universe and bringing her passions to life. Her house, her kitchen, her salon stir into action again, in this soirée in the company of her friends, these artists to whom she was so close and who, respectfully and with tender affection, listened to each other, conversed, laughed, and celebrated in music and poetry. Here, George Sand does not sing, nor does she play an instrument. So Sonya Yoncheva portrays her by reading some of her words. They bear witness to the sparkling, glittering nature of the ‘Lady of Nohant’.

What surprises there are throughout this recital! If the passionate urges of Alfred de Musset, fervent or, as so often, disappointed, nourish this journey equally, so the sumptuous Nuit de décembre by Ruggero Leoncavallo, the more hedonistic examples of Pauline Viardot, these two Mazurkas by Chopin transformed into mélodies with Louis Pomey’s slightly schoolboyish texts, or more obscurely the ‘medley’ of Les Bohémiennes, marrying diverse motifs, of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, also delight heart and mind – a beautiful homage to the innate music that derives from folk and popular traditions, something that George Sand so frequently and tenderly extolled.

High Resolution 24-bit / 192 kHz