George (CD) – Sonya Yoncheva

Composers: Frédéric Chopin, Léo Delibes, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Jacques Offenbach, Francesco Paolo Tosti, Pauline Viardot, Franz Liszt
Artists: Sonya Yoncheva, Olga Zado, Marina Viotti, Adam Taubitz
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Naïve
Release Date: April 4, 2025

Sonya Yoncheva has long been fascinated by George Sand. Writer, dramaturg, and literary critic, a journalist and an intellectual, the lover of Alfred de Musset and then of Frédéric Chopin, as well as being a friend of Franz Liszt, Pauline Viardot, and Marie Dorval, and beyond her remarkable destiny as a woman blessed with the “glorious and complete independence” which in her age was reserved solely for men, Sand embodies the entire spirit, the essence even, of the 19th century. 

It is in the first place her boldness, approaching the intrepid, which appeals to the Bulgarian soprano. Sand showed daring all her life, and what a fount of inspiration her writings are. Whether political, social, cultural, or artistic, how pertinent they are, and how their vibrant, trenchant language dazzles.

George Sand loved the arts unconditionally. And so, this program opens the doors to us, revealing her artistic universe and bringing her passions to life. Here, George Sand does not sing, nor does she play an instrument. So, Sonya Yoncheva portrays her by reading some of her words. They bear witness to the sparkling, glittering nature of the “Lady of Nohant.” If the passionate urges of Alfred de Musset nourish this journey equally, so do the sumptuous Nuit de décembre by Ruggero Leoncavallo and the more hedonistic examples of Pauline Viardot. 

The two Mazurkas by Chopin transform into mélodies with Louis Pomey's slightly schoolboyish texts, and the “medley” of Les Bohémiennes also delight heart and mind – a beautiful homage to the innate music that derives from folk and popular traditions, something that George Sand so frequently and tenderly extolled.

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