From the memory of childhood to death, from Tchaikovsky to Shostakovich, Russian music has often sung elegies. With Glazunov and Tchaikovsky, they are recollections of childhood, nostalgia for another world. While Rachmaninoff evokes purity in his Vocalise, Shostakovich intones a swansong, a song of death. In the warm timbre of Gérard Causses viola and the generous sonority of Brigitte Engerer’s piano, all the melancholy and tenderness of Russia finds eloquent expression.