Manuscripts Don’t Burn

Inna Faliks

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Manuscripts Don’t Burn is a famous line in Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita – the retelling of Faust, the 20th century cult novel of an artist surviving in a Totalitarian regime, the love story, the burlesque with giant, vodka drinking cats and vampiric theater administrators.

I first read the book as a kid, growing up in Soviet Odesa. I took it with me when my parents and I immigrated, as Jewish refugees running from antisemitism, through Austria and Italy, to the United States.  Crossing the border, I worried that guards would discover my book, and I would be severely punished. Throughout the years, the book played a role in my life. My childhood best friend from Odesa reread the book in adulthood and decided to find me – we are now together for 20 years, with two kids.  I read the book to my mother as she was dying from brain cancer.

Bulgakov’s novel weaves through my own newly published memoir, Weight in the Fingertips – A Musical Odyssey from Soviet Ukraine to the World Stage (Backbeat Books, October 2023). I consider this very personal recording to be something of a mirror image to my memoir, as it intertwines the literal images from Master and Margarita with more autobiographical themes and layers.

The five premieres, written for me and recorded here, are vastly different in styles and aesthetic. The understated, elegant Master and Margarita Suite by Veronika Krausas complements the wild, theatrical, brooding and extended techniques-filled “Manuscripts Don’t Burn” by Maya Miro Johnson.  Mike Garson’s Psalm to Odesa, an improvisatory ballad, with bits of my own improvisation based a well known Odesan song, sets off “Voices” by Ljova, a piece for piano and historical recordings of Jewish cantorial and klezmer music. Both take me back to my home city, currently under vicious attack, like the rest of Ukraine. The poetry I recite, sing and hum while performing the four-movement Godai – the Four Elements – is rounded off by the propulsive bravura whirlwind of Hero.  Fasil Say’s Black Earth takes the listener on a journey from Odesa across the Black Sea – a Turkish ballad and jazzy beats alternates with improvisatory melisma of a Turkish lute, played on muted strings of the piano. The rarely heard Notturno of Fanny Mendelssohn connects a gifted female voice to the others on this disc, as well as, perhaps, to the dark, impassioned character of Margarita. In Master and Margarita,  “Manuscripts Don’t Burn” is spoken by Satan when he retrieves the manuscript of a novel presumed burnt – and in Clarice Assad’s “Godai”, Steve Schroeder’s poem depicts the loss of a manuscript in a fire.

The lieder of Schubert, transcribed for solo piano by Liszt, riffs on the mythical and the Faustian lore found also in Master and Margarita: Gretchen (Margarita) at the spinning wheel, a mystical love story by the sea, a monstrous Elf King and the death of a child, of innocence, of joy – one’s worst fear.

This collection of music speaks to my love of dialogue between music and words. As in my Music/Words series, where I pair poets with musical programs in the form of a recital/reading, the connections between text and sound here are not just literal but emotional, based on memory, intuition, dreams and hopes.

Inna Faliks, Piano

Tracklist

Please note that the below previews are loaded as 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.
1.
Master and Margarita Suite: 1. Time to Go - a Sarabande
01:37
2.
Master and Margarita Suite: 2. 14th of the Month of Nisan
03:06
3.
Master and Margarita Suite: 3. Night Streets of Moscow - a Polonaise
02:00
4.
Master and Margarita Suite: 4. Yellow Flower Waltz
02:40
5.
Master and Margarita Suite: 5. Fantasia 'Have you stopped loving me?'
02:30
6.
Master and Margarita Suite: 6. Behemoth's Somersaults into Cognac - a Bagatelle
02:08
7.
Master and Margarita Suite: 7. Listen to the Silence - Epilogue
02:33
8.
Gretchem am Spinnrade
04:30
9.
Manuscripts Don't Burn
06:59
10.
Notturno in G minor
04:23
11.
Erlkonig
04:43
12.
Am Meer
04:37
13.
Black Earth
07:06
14.
'A Psalm for Odesa'
04:36
15.
'Voices': I. Sirota
06:51
16.
'Voices': II. Alter(ed) Zhok
05:16
17.
'Voices': III. Freydele
06:05
18.
Godai (The Five Elements): I. Dry Bones - Wind
02:30
19.
Godai (The Five Elements): II. Absence - Fire and Water
03:07
20.
Godai (The Five Elements): III. Earth
02:01
21.
Godai (The Five Elements): IV. Ascension-Sky
02:19
22.
Hero (for piano solo)
02:22

Total time: 01:23:59

Additional information

Label

SKU

DSL92275

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Artists

Composers

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Assistant Engineer

Joshua Frey

Instruments

Original Recording Format

Piano Technician

Dale Smith (Yamaha CFX9)

Producer

Dan Merceruio

Recording Location

Sono Luminus Studios, Boyce VA August 3/4, 2024

Recording, Mixing, Mastering Engineer

Daniel Shores

Release DateMay 17, 2024

1 review for Manuscripts Don’t Burn

    Very enjoyable music selection and playing by Inna Faliks. Very nicely recorded by Sono Luminus.

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Sono Luminus 79 albums

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