Isabel Bayrakdarian: Armenian Songs for Children
AVIE Records

Armenian Songs for Children presents twenty-nine pieces rendered exquisitely by Lebanese-born, Canadian-Armenian-American soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian. As the songs were sung by her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother and now to her own children, her deep connection to the material is borne out by the bewitching performances on the seventy-three-minute release. Testifying to the personal resonance of the songs, Bayrakdarian is the granddaughter of survivors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide who listened to her mother sing these prayers, lullabies, and songs from, in her words, “a homeland that no longer existed, and from a place that seemed far, far away.”

These lullabies draw on the experiences of the Armenian people and, for Bayrakdarian, span two centuries and five generations. In addition to four traditionals, songs by three composers—Gomidas Vartabed (1869-1935), and his two students Parsegh Ganatchian (1885-1967) and Mihran Toumajan (1890-1973)—are performed by the singer with magnificent accompaniment by Ellie Choate (harp), Ray Furuta (flute), and Ruben Harutyunyan (duduk). As wonderful as it is to hear Bayrakdarian with an orchestra, the sparse presentation of these songs lends itself perfectly to the character of the material; further to that, it enables her voice to be heard with the greatest clarity and her vocal artistry to be savoured to the fullest. Full credit to Artur Avanesov and John Hodian for the beauty of their arrangements.

Bayrakdarian excels at singing folk material, but her expertise extends widely. She's sung with the Canadian Opera Company, the Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, La Scala, the Royal Opera Covent Garden, and the Salzburg Festival, and has performed roles in operas by Mozart, Gluck, Poulenc, Debussy, and Bolcom. She's won four Juno Awards for Best Classical Album and has appeared on recordings of Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 and Mahler's Symphony No. 2.

As celebrated as she's been in those contexts, hearing her sing this material is extremely special when it calls upon her to illuminate songs of sorrow, joy, and longing with poignant expression. There's a wonderful smoothness, even creaminess to her voice that makes them come vividly to life, and her command of pitch and control is unerring. With flute and harp augmenting the singer, Vartabed's Six Children's Songs and Five Lullaby Fragments inaugurate the recording with material ranging from playful and yearning to soothing. The artfulness with which she gracefully arcs from one pitch to another throughout “Sleep My Child,” especially when the song's delivered at such a slow tempo, is stunning, and the plaintive expression with which “Dream” is invested is as mesmerizing.

Arranged for voice and harp only, the selections of Ganatchian songs are especially meaningful to her, as they're ones she used to sing as a child in elementary school. The serenity of “Nocturne” is memorable (“The world sleeps in sweet slumber”), but so too is “Sleep My Child” for its mother's open-hearted declaration of love (“Close your eyes / May sleep descend / Upon your beautiful eyes”). The haunting impact of Toumajan's “Swinging Song,” “Rocking Song,” and “I Sing to You” is intensified by the addition of Harutyunyan's duduk to the arrangements. The recording is no less poignant as it moves into the final stage with the traditional lullaby “Come, My Nightingale” before concluding with “Rocking Song.”

September 2021