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Manuscripts Don’t Burn is a famous line in Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita – the retelling of Faust, the 20th century cult novel of an artist surviving in a Totalitarian regime, the love story, the burlesque with giant, vodka drinking cats and vampiric theater administrators. The five premieres, written for Inna Faliks and recorded here, are vastly different in styles and esthetic. The understated, elegant "Master and Margarita Suite" by Veronika Krausas complements the wild, theatrical, brooding and extended techniques-filled “Manuscripts Don’t Burn” by Maya Miro Johnson. Mike Garson’s "Psalm to Odesa", an improvisatory ballad, with bits of Faliks' own improvisation based a well known Odesan song, sets off “Voices” by Ljova, a piece for piano and historical recordings of Jewish cantorial and klezmer music. The poetry that Faliks recites, sings and hums while performing the four-movement "Godai - the Four Elements" - is rounded off by the propulsive bravura whirlwind of "Hero". Fasil Say’s "Black Earth" takes the listener on a journey from Odesa across the Black Sea - a Turkish ballad and jazzy beats alternates with improvisatory melisma of a Turkish lute, played on muted strings of the piano. The rarely heard Notturno of Fanny Mendelssohn connects a gifted female voice to the others on this disc, as well as, perhaps, to the dark, impassioned character of Margarita. In "Master and Margarita", “Manuscripts Don’t Burn” is spoken by Satan when he retrieves the manuscript of a novel presumed burnt – and in Clarice Assad’s “Godai”, Steve Schroeder’s poem depicts the loss of a manuscript in a fire. The lieder of Schubert, transcribed for solo piano by Liszt, riffs on the mythical and the Faustian lore found also in Master and Margarita: Gretchen (Margarita) at the spinning wheel, a mystical love story by the sea, a monstrous Elf King and the death of a child, of innocence, of joy - one’s worst fear. "This collection of music speaks to my love of dialogue between music and words. As in my Music/Words series, where I pair poets with musical programs in the form of a recital/reading, the connections between text and sound here are not just literal but emotional, based on memory, intuition, dreams and hopes." - Inna Faliks