Soprano
Asmik Grigorian
has been a star of London operatic stages in the 2020s, and listeners hungry for recordings from her propelled this release onto classical best-seller charts in early 2024. The singer's reputation for originality is upheld here; the piano versions of
Strauss
'
Four Last Songs
by
Max Wolff
and
John Gribben
(on
Im Abendrot
) have been performed from time to time, but putting them together with the original orchestral versions seems to be new. The graphics on
Grigorian
's release are wacky, festooned with nonsense equations and a picture of the singer with sunglasses hanging from her mouth. This seems uniquely unsuited to the material here. The attitude continues with her justification that "'one is never enough for me," but she also points out that the versions require quite different interpretations, and in this, she is correct.
fills in the additional space offered by the sparser piano accompaniment, resulting in slower performances that have a melancholic feel. All four songs are slower in their piano versions, and accompanist
Markus Hinterhäuser
gives
room to work. Sample the two versions of September, with the piano version nearly two minutes slower than the orchestral and
almost as divergent.
's interpretations of the orchestral versions are unobjectionable but less distinctive on the whole; the
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
under
Mikko Franck
offers rich support. The piano versions were recorded at the Herkulessaal in Munich, which might have worked better for the orchestral versions; intimacy is lost. None of the issues here, however, are likely to dissuade fans of this singer, who is looking like a real original. ~ James Manheim