This Is Not A Lullaby

Dutch soprano Channa Malkin released her new album This Is Not A Lullaby on the TRPTK music label.. Joined by cellist Maya Fridman and pianist Artem Belogurov, the album featuring song cycles which present her intimately personal perspective on motherhood with music by 20th and 21st century composers Mieczysław Weinberg, Sir John Tavener, and her father Josef Malkin.

Her choice of program is bound together by the all-Russian text (Malkin’s mother tongue), family ties and cultural heritage through her father’s and Weinberg’s songs, and the distinctly female voice coming through the text in all three works with the poetry of leading writers including Gabriela Mistral and Anna Akhmatova set to music by Weinberg, Tavener and Josef Malkin.

Channa Malkin said, “Becoming a mother has changed me in more ways than I can put into words. During the coronavirus pandemic, it has been a blessing to work on this highly personal project inspired by my son Ezra.”

Channa Malkin is a singer known for her broad repertoire, from Italian baroque opera to Sephardic chamber music. She is a recent nominee of the Grachtenfestival Prize 2020 and debuted at the age of 17 as Barbarina (Le nozze di Figaro) at the Dutch National Opera. She has since performed on the operatic and concert stages and in song recitals across Europe and the United States.

Described as an artist who “channels her unbridled creativity into socially engaged and highly personal programs” (Aart-Jan van de Pol, jury member Grachtenfestival Prize), Channa Malkin holds up an alternative but genuine experience of motherhood and womanhood in this album, going against the archetypal and one-dimensional trope of a mother rocking her child to sleep with soothing lullabies.

Mieczysław Weinberg (1919 – 1996) was a Polish-born Soviet composer whose prodigious and influential output has only in recent years gained the recognition it deserves. His song cycle for soprano and piano, Rocking the child, a later work composed in 1973, uses the text of Nobel Prize- winning Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral from her book Ternura (Tenderness, 1924) in Russian translation. As a father to two daughters, Weinberg could relate to the mother’s and caregiver’s emotional world evoked in many of the eleven songs, while also understanding through first-hand experience of displacement through war and persecution how to enter the world of children who are isolated and have no mothers for others in the cycle. It is the particularly honest portrayal of what it means to be a mother who drew Malkin to this work during a sleepless night following the birth of her son, as well as the opportunity to highlight and pass on the underperformed vocal music of a composer who shares much of the cultural heritage of her own family.

Channa Malkin’s father, Josef Malkin, was born in Georgia in 1950 before spending time in Moscow, Israel, and the Netherlands. He spent twenty-five years of his career as a violinist in the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, turning to composition in 2004 with his song cycle Black Flowers which has been performed internationally. Alongside numerous instrumental chamber pieces, Malkin’s vocal repertoire includes works in Dutch, Hebrew, English, and Russian which have always been inspired by Channa’s voice and are often premiered by her. Five Russian Songs for soprano and piano was composed for Channa using poetry by a diverse range of authors along the themes of childhood and mortality, with poetry by the iconic Russian poet Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), Jewish-Crimean poet Ilya Selvinsky (1899-1968), ‘forgotten generation’ Soviet Boris Ryzhy (1974- 2001) and contemporary Amsterdam-based poet Vladimir Riabokon-Ribeaupierre (1957-). Premiered in August 2020 at the Grachtenfestival and published recently as part of a larger collection of twelve songs, this will be the world premiere recording of the song cycle.

Sir John Tavener (1944-2013) was one of the leading British contemporary composers of his generation. Known for his religious works, he gained worldwide recognition for pieces such as The Protecting Veil, Song for Athene, and The Lamb. Through explorations of Russian and Greek culture in later life, Tavener was inspired by fragments of poetry by the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova to write Akhmatova Songs for soprano and cello, embracing elements of mysticism in his creation. While this is the least literal portrayal of motherhood in Malkin’s program, Akhmatova Songs poses a confrontation with mortality that being a mother can stimulate. According to Channa, it highlights how the identity of the multifaceted woman that exists behind every mother is threatened by motherhood itself but can be reclaimed.

Recorded in December 2020 in the main hall of the Philharmonie Haarlem, this album highlights the quality of sound achieved by the young TRPTK label. Founded in 2014 by producer Brendon Heinst, the label is known for its sonic immersion through perfect spatial and timbral fidelity using Multichannel recording processes and its celebration of ‘liveness’.

Channa Malkin’s “profound storytelling” with her programming, combined with the immersive quality of the TRPTK label, has served to create a unique album underlining her artistic values and bringing to light both familiar and unknown works through the lens of a mother, woman, and musician.

Channa Malkin – Soprano
Artem Belogurov – Piano
Maya Fridman – Cello