Armenia is unusual in the high number of musical figures who were not precisely composers or folk song collectors but rather somewhere in between the two. The most famous of these is Gomidas Vartabed, credited with several numbers on this collection of Armenian children's songs by soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian. The pieces hold personal significance for the singer, who heard them as a child and who now sings them for her own children. Bayrakdarian has an absolutely distinctive voice that has garnered her a cadre of fans who ...
Read More
Armenia is unusual in the high number of musical figures who were not precisely composers or folk song collectors but rather somewhere in between the two. The most famous of these is Gomidas Vartabed, credited with several numbers on this collection of Armenian children's songs by soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian. The pieces hold personal significance for the singer, who heard them as a child and who now sings them for her own children. Bayrakdarian has an absolutely distinctive voice that has garnered her a cadre of fans who will likely be delighted with this release. The repertory is also of arcane intellectual interest; cradle songs have figured from time to time in the history of classical music, but the various subdivisions here take the genre to a new level of refinement. There are pieces designated not only lullabies and cradle songs but also rocking songs, bouncing songs, and swinging songs, with a Nocturne and a Dream (and a Children's Prayer, perhaps intended for the time before sleep) thrown in....
Read Less
