Departed Rus', vocal cycle by Georgy Sviridov, version by Alexei Syumak by Various, Od (2022/2022), Dirigent Olga Vlasova, Dom Radio, Saint Petersburg, Russia

“Departed Rus'” is one of the most significant works of Sviridov, written to the verses of Sergei Yesenin. The selection of texts for the cycle revealed to the listeners an unfamiliar poet - a mystic, a religious thinker. On top of Yesenin's lines, Sviridov wrote his own poem about Russia with a deep philosophical basis, a poetic-archaic sound and a through movement from landscape lyrics through dramatic collisions to a hymn finale. Olga Vlasova: “The songs of the Sviridov cycle remind me of pearls on a necklace, where each is valuable in itself, but together they make up a precious piece of jewelry, united by one thread. And this thread is the image of Russia as presented by Yesenin and Sviridov in Syumak's arrangement. In our performance version, Yesenin's texts are heard several times: in the vocal part of Andrei Nemzer in Sviridov's version and in the reading of actress Elena Morozova - in Yesenin's full version. The multifaceted figurative structure and the complexity of the semantics of this poetry prompted us to make such a decision: thanks to it, you can see and carefully examine the different facets of the works of the poet and composer. The voices of Elena Morozova and Andrey Nemzer are not just "tools" for voicing poetic lines or notes. This is a special sound paint, which becomes a full-fledged part of the musical field, enriches it with unique timbres and intonations. Exploring a musical poem within the framework of the theatrical and concert space, one involuntarily comes across a comparison of male and female principles - both in the performing version and in the score itself. The musical and poetic language of the work is manly and stingy. The words that form the semantic core of the entire poem - "Rus", "Russia", "Motherland" - are feminine words. In each issue of the cycle, you can find many contradictory combinations, which are characteristic, probably, of every Russian person. What is this Yesenin phrase worth, which essentially defines our genetic code: “blessed suffering blesses the people.”