Lullabies

The idea of putting together a programme of lullabies first came to me a few years ago. I was in love, I was happy, I was sitting on a balcony overlooking the sea listening to Ravel’s Sonatine played by Grigory Sokolov when I had a sense of déjà vu, of rocking on the waves… something like this had happened to me before – it had been just as warm, the sun was beating down, the sea undulated, and someone powerful and beloved was watching over me. It must have been a memory from before I was born.
Suddenly the man who would be the father of my children said: Why not devise a programme to lull the listeners into dreams and daydreams? The idea went straight to my head. Then I became pregnant and my daughter Alexandra was born. Then Dmitri, who had edited my book, asked me: “Surely it’s time to make a disc of Music for Sasha?” While I was preparing to record Sasha’s music I got pregnant again, then Anton was born and since before all that my daughter Anastasia had already come into my life, there seemed no point in waiting any longer. Here it was, my perfect audience – and so it is to them that this disc is dedicated. This little trip from the early 20th century, to the 19th, then to the 21st and back to the 19th strikes me as an astonishingly attractive one. Batagov and Liszt suddenly seem to be contemporaries, Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Desyatnikov are bloodbrothers. Everything has become so intricately mingled it is hard to tell the difference. Sleep well, my darlings.
Polina Osetinskaya, Moscow, June 2013