Basically, this CD is a second release of
"For the Great Kobzar", copies of which have long been sold out – but. The first – and, perhaps, the most valuable – difference is that the new publication is a collection of
restored records. No doubt, serious work has been done – because, despite the notorious quality of archive records of those years, everything sounds good. Well, and the second one – the content. Shevchenko Program, composed by Borys Hmyrya himself – is extended with the song "Nightingales Cry and Laugh" (the last work that the singer learned and sang), as well as arias and recitatives from the movie
"Hireling". And yet – that's not the most important thing...
Words cannot express the entire range of emotions and feelings that sound in Hmyrya's singing – and all the depth of each color. Here it comes to talent that not only in singing, but also the dramatic one – of an unprecedented, by the way, scale. How much pain and light, hope and disappointment, one's own and others' life stories one should experience, truly live through them – in order to with such subtle nuances convey the most tender tones of the human soul... Moreover – when it comes to poetry by Shevchenko. It is performed too often – and in too different ways. And to avoid the false – perhaps, one needs to approach it not as to artistic objects, but just as to true stories. Thus, one should see these stories from this same height as Shevchenko did – even if from another angle – and Hmyrya, obviously, managed that...
