Eight Songs [Seven Posthumous Songs], Op 61

Date: 1930s-51
For: Voice (Medium high) and piano
Published by: Belaieff 1954 (except Midday, Schirmer 1946)
Availability: Peters (except Midday)

Recordings

no. 1
Ivanilova sop/Derzhavina 2005/Moscow* CD Vista Vera VVCD-00209

nos. 1, 2
Vitale mez/Baur 2001 CD Real Sound RS051-0038

no. 2
Del Grande bar/Mishakov LP Ecudo 4016

no. 6
Del Grande bar/Pleshakov 1971 LP Orion ORS7157†
Andrew sop/Tozer 1993 CD Chandos CHAN9327, listed as Op.59 no.1

nos. 6, 7
Savenko bbar/Yampolsky 1995 CD Triton DICC-26049 - nla
Savenko bbar/Berezovsky 2007/Moscow* CD Vista Vera VVCD-00209

no. 8
Pluzhnikov ten/Shafran 1985 LP Melodiya C10-23791/2

† Omitted from the BIRS discography

Makushina/Medtner made an unpublished recording of no.6 Midday for HMV in 1947

Midday (or Noon) was originally published in a Medtner song anthology as Op.59 no.1. Subsequently Medtner used this opus for the Two Elegies. The 1959 Collected Edition inserted this song into Op.61, causing a change in numbering of the last three songs. Op.61 no.3 was provisionally numbered Op.59 no.2 and appears as such in Drinker's English texts, but was published for the first time in Op.61.

According to Barrie Martyn's biography, nos. 3 and 6 were composed in the 1930s (premiered 1936), nos. 1 and 2 completed in 1945, and nos. 5 and 8 completed in 1951.