When Channa Malkin sings in Ukrainian, emotions become visible ★★★★☆

Why is it sung in Russian? The question, posed in Ukrainian, comes from the audience. Ukrainian refugees and their host families are welcome free of charge in the Philharmonie, Wednesday evening in Haarlem. Soprano Channa Malkin has just completed the Russian song cycle in the Kleine Zaal rocking the child (to a text by the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral) by Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996) and now welcomes everyone. She reacts calmly to the abrupt interruption. The program, which has been fixed for some time, contains settings of Russian poems.

In mid-March there was still a fuss because Haarlem had banned Russian composers Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. During this benefit concert, one of the many organized these days, the Russians still sound. Malkin is the child of a Georgian father and a mother who grew up in Ukraine. She dedicates this concert, with her hands holding her pregnant belly, to all mothers and children who are victims of the war in Ukraine.

In May last year, Malkin, cellist Maya Fridman and pianist Artem Belogurov released an album with this repertoire, This Is Not a Lullaby† Specially on this evening, three Ukrainian songs by Denis Sichynsky (1865-1909) will also be performed.

The Russian lyrics were in danger of going wrong, but when Malkin’s colorful soprano with delicate vibrato envelops the hall in Ukrainian words, the emotions are visible. Sichynsky’s songs have the Eastern European melancholy and the contrasting rhythms of folk dances. The golden brown sound of Fridman echoes the thin voice. Belogurov is a serving, but also somewhat boring accompanist.

It is above all the intensity of John Tavener’s music that silences everyone admiringly. Cello and voice, without piano, sound like unearthly Gregorian chant. You can do nothing but surrender.