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Loves Me Not

Kristina Marinova piano

Release Date: June 23, 2023
Catalog #: NV6526
Format: Digital & Physical
20th Century
Romantic
Solo Instrumental
Piano

Bulgarian-born pianist Kristina Marinova harnesses the healing powers of emotional melodies on LOVES ME NOT, a curated selection of soulful classical piano pieces spanning three centuries, from Bach to Rachmaninoff.

Within the album’s tracklist lies an impressive range of works and composers: Gluck, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Scriabin, Tarrega and Satie, to name a few. The compositions are united by their melancholic themes (often sparked by biographical calamity), but like an acorn that falls from the crown of a tree, they bear within themselves a seed of hope, a new beginning.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Prelude in E minor, Op. 28 No. 4 Frédéric Chopin Kristina Marinova, piano 2:16
02 Melodie from Orphée et Eurydice “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” Christoph Willibald Gluck, Giovanni Sgambati Kristina Marinova, piano 3:40
03 Consolation: Lento placido in D-flat Major, S. 172 No. 3 Franz Liszt Kristina Marinova, piano 4:25
04 “How Fair This Spot,” Op. 21 No. 7 Sergei Rachmaninoff arr. Kristina Marinova Kristina Marinova, piano 2:04
05 Siciliano from the Flute Sonata in E Flat Major, No. 2, BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach, Wilhelm Kempff Kristina Marinova, piano 4:06
06 Étude in D-sharp minor, Op. 8, No. 12 Alexander Scriabin Kristina Marinova, piano 2:40
07 Melodie, Op. 3 No. 3 Sergei Rachmaninoff Kristina Marinova, piano 4:28
08 Liebeslied - Widmung, No. 1 from Myrthen, S. 566 Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt Kristina Marinova, piano 4:30
09 Impromptu, No. 3 in G Flat Major, D 899-3 (Opus 90 No 3.) Franz Schubert Kristina Marinova, piano 6:14
10 Elegie, Op. 3 No. 1 Sergei Rachmaninoff Kristina Marinova, piano 5:47
11 Prelude in E minor, BWV 855a Johann Sebastian Bach, Alexander Siloti Kristina Marinova, piano 3:34
12 Gymnopédie, No. 1 Erik Satie Kristina Marinova, piano 3:43
13 Nocturne in B Flat Minor, Op. 9 No. 1 Frédéric Chopin Kristina Marinova, piano 6:05
14 Rêverie, L. 68 Claude Debussy Kristina Marinova, piano 4:57
15 Gretchen am Spinnrade, D. 118 Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt Kristina Marinova, piano 4:25
16 Vocalise Op. 34, No. 14 Sergei Rachmaninoff, Zoltán Kocsis Kristina Marinova, piano 6:18
17 Étude in B Flat Minor, Op. 8 No. 11 Alexander Scriabin Kristina Marinova, piano 4:15
18 “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” Francisco Tarrega arr. Kristina Marinova Kristina Marinova, piano 4:37

Recorded October 14 and 22, 2022 at Oktaven Audio LLC in Mount Vernon NY
Recording Session Engineer Ryan Streber
Instrument Hamburg Steinway D
Photography Aleksandra DeKorne

Executive Producer Bob Lord

A&R Director Brandon MacNeil
A&R Danielle Sullivan

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Patrick Niland

Artist Information

Kristina Marinova

Kristina Marinova

Pianist

Kristina Marinova has been described as a virtuoso performer of extreme energy and youthful vibrance. Her clear and precise tone enhances her stormy expressions and performances, full of grace, serenity, style, and beauty. Her album entitled 4 RHAPSODIES, which she performed live at Carnegie Hall on November 17th, 2022, has been called “A Feast for the Ears” by Darren Rea of Classical Music Review Magazine.

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Notes

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” — Sir Winston Churchill

LOVES ME NOT is an album intended for emotional deliverance. A collection of melancholic pieces reflecting my personal belief that music, imbued with sadness, can have therapeutic benefits and help lead the way out of darkness and heal a broken heart. We often find ourselves in the midst of life’s adversities such as the end of love, betrayal, rejection, mourning a loss and homesickness… experiences which can be painful, heart wrenching, crushing even devastating; sinking one into a pervasive sense of despair and loneliness. However, through the healing power of music, there is light and hope if one seeks this path.

Paradoxical? Perhaps. However melancholic music can fuel yearning and lead to positive mood enhancement. Sad music can somehow free one from engrossment with pain and the imprisonment of lament helping to release anguish. Melancholic music resonates with one’s feeling of despair. It triggers mental inwardness and compassion retained in tranquility. The understanding of reality and acceptance ultimately leads to arousal of hope and desire to connect with others, generating the motivation to survive, endure and grow all the while healing emotionally.

Young Debussy was dissatisfied with his work and felt deep regret publishing Rêverie (daydream). From the French word “revere,” the root meant “to speak wildly; a state of delirium or to rave like a lunatic.” Revere has morphed over time from madness to daydream and in the present day, the word implies “a state of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts; a daydream.” The piece Rêverie creates a serene, dreamy, and utopian ambiance where one is lost in thought, longing, and daydreaming. The musing of the dream transforms into a heightened state of yearning as the texture becomes richer and more complex.

Rachmaninoff’s works are dominated by longing for his homeland. His early pieces are almost entirely melancholic. The heartfelt Elegie exemplifies the juxtaposition of mental prowess versus heart. It’s not accidental that this transcendently sad and melancholic story, after transforming through a series of emotions, rejoices in a major key of one’s prevailing will in a forte dynamic at the end.

Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise was presented at the composer’s memorial service. A longing vocal line weaves its melancholic melody over a weeping descending bass and heart beating chords creating an atmosphere of suffering and regret. The opulent material drawn from the opening interlines the melody and accompaniment into the development section in search of an emotional climax. The piece ascends to heaven with a coda where angelic harp flurries soar above the accompaniment untangled with reminiscent echoes of the melody before coming to a rest in the final cadence.

Schubert composed Impromptu No. 3 the year before he died. It was a deliverance of his infirmity. The sublime and immaculate lyricism of the sweet melody of this piece is confined by strain and discomfort in the harmonic texture of the eighth note pattern, ever moving, suggestive of flutterings of a human heart. A dramaturgy of a beautiful prayer, flowing peacefully in search of the realization of one’s sentient existence. Pensive passion bridges the translucent emotions through the return of the innocent melody, this time moving at a slower pace in the presence of a peaceful remembrance indulged in a sense of gratitude.

The Melody is the haunting lamentation of Orpheus after the loss of his darling nymph Eurydice, who dies from a poisonous snake bite on their wedding day. One of the most famous love stories takes place in the Elysian Fields, the final resting place of the souls in Greek mythology. After descending into the underworld to save Eurydice, the god Hades is moved by his love and grants him permission to save her soul on one condition — on their journey back to the world of men Orpheus must not turn back to look at his beloved. Orpheus fails and Eurydice is returned to the underworld. The yearning melody of the piece paints a haunting image of simplicity, elegance, mourning, anxiety, and sorrow.

In Consolation No. 3, Liszt mourns the passing of his friend Chopin. Unanticipated in its movement and harmonic direction the piece gives one the feeling of floating on an ethereal cloud of unforeseen events, something that is happening rather than something being planned and controlled. Here the pianist is a vessel, a medium of purpose witnessing and experiencing the emotional compulsions of the composer.

Robert Schumann wrote and dedicated his set of Lieder called Myrthen, Op. 25, to his beloved Clara Wieck as a gift for their wedding following a prolonged battle of opposition and disapproval of her father. The cycle presents diverse subjects of romantic love, anguish, and rejoicing. The opening song Widmung, set by the poet Friedrich Rückert, translates “Dedication.” The Lied was later arranged for piano solo by Franz Liszt where heartfelt emotions, intimacy, and passion evolve into a powerful climax. The feelings of uncertainty, fear of separation, an unforeseen future, and grief are removed by the power of love guiding the music to a place of repose, serenity, and peace. The only path to reach personal growth through the search of one’s better self is through pure love. Liszt used the title “Liebeslied” in the first edition of the piece (1848), hence in the present day the song is known under two different titles.

In Liszt’s arrangement Gretchen am Spinnrade by Schubert, we hear the evocative story of a young girl overwhelmed by the anguish and despair of the love she feels for Faust. Gretchen, alone in her grief, is harrowed by the remembrance of her lost love. The melody, evocatively beautiful and looming, portrays Gretchen’s soul in an accelerating state of torment and despair. Two motives in the left hand of the pianist set the dramaturgy of the story, the first: the perpetual motion imitating a spinning wheel and the latter: representing Gretchen’s beating heart.

In just a few precious measures of Prelude in E minor, Chopin presents emotional complexities of solitude, grief, despair, bleakness, and poignant resignation. An elegy, prayer, or hymn to a broken heart; the simple melody accompanied by the rhythm of a beating heart moves the soul to unveil an ode of yearning, peace, and pure everlasting beauty.

Gymnopédie No. 1 is evocative, melancholic, nostalgic, and intentionally simple. A hypnotic chant is ascending and descending like waves over sustained rhythm depicting a sense of musical landscape transcending through time. The composer marked the score “Lent et douloureux” or to be played “slowly with pain/grief.”

Tarrega composed Memories of the Alhambra after visiting the Moorish castle-palace-garden in Granada. The piece was composed on the day marking the Immaculate Conception and takes the listener on a journey of noble elegance, devoutness, beauty, and melancholy. In the tender minor opening — A section, the bubbling tremolo paints a picture of the flowing water from the fountains at the famous palace and the surrounding mountain tops. Lost in feeling, daydreaming, and unrushed, one can hear sobbing in the left hand overcome by pious resignation. Decisive expressions of purity, innocence, and certainty take over in the major B section.

The D-sharp-minor Etude, imbued with great elan and courageous pathos, is the volcanic climax of the set. The focus of the drama changes when the poet enters the space, captivated in a brief reflective monologue. The storm gains speed again reaching an apogee of explosive emotions, dramatic expressions, and feelings of splendid revolution.

“I give full flowering to each feeling, each search, each thirst. / I raise you up, legions of feelings, pure activity, my children. / I raise you, my complicated, unified feelings, and embrace all of you as my one activity, my one ecstasy, bliss, my last moment.”

— Scriabin, Alexander