A FEARFUL FAIRY TALE

Helena Basilova (piano) & Maya Fridman (cello)

There are two words for truth in Russian: Pravda for objective truth and Ishtina for transcendental truth, that what you know but cannot explain. While Helena’s previous solo albums – with music from Janacek and Scriabin – were each in their own way quite personal to her, this time she wanted more Ishtina than Pravda. She wanted a story that was not just personal for her but representative of her. And Helena’s personal story is one of multitudes. Of departures and forgetting, discovery and loss, of glimmers of understanding, and feelings of coherence in oceans of confusing false certainties.

This collection of music is meant as a story in itself, each piece included for the power it has to forge a connection that needed the story to be forged. And so it was with the piece that inspired the album.

This album – of stories and a story in itself – is Helena’s tribute, to fairy tales and her homeland.

Yuri Bagri:
 Fairytale About the Forgotten Homeland: I. The First Snow

Elena Firsova:
 A Fearful Fairy Tale

Leos Janácek:
 Pohádka (Fairytale), JW VII/5
  with Maya Fridman (cello)

Nikolai Medtner:
 Three Tales, Op. 9: II. Allegro alla serenata, con alcuna licenza
 Two Tales, Op. 20: II. Pesante. Minaccioso
 Four Tales, Op. 26: III. Narrante a piacere
 Four Tales, Op. 34: II. Allegro cantabile e leggiero

Nikolai Myaskovsky:
 Yellowed Leaves, Op. 31

Sergei Prokofiev:
 Tales of an Old Grandmother, Op. 31

Alfred Schnittke:
 Piano sonata No. 1, Op. 129