Choral pieces with obbligato instruments (in this case, cello) are rare and always serve to enhance a program. This lovely part-song epitomizes the style of the Russian late-19th-century Romantics. The Three Quartets by Anton Arensky, on texts by Afanasy Fet—one of Russia’s foremost Romantic poets—are in the finest tradition of Romantic vocal chamber music. This new edition features a beautiful singing translation in English by Mark Herman and Ronnie Apter, which captures well the spirit of Fet’s poetty, as well as the original Russian text in both phonetics and Cyrillic.
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