Tchaikovsky Seasons

Incredibly, despite several solo recordings dedicated to Russian composers, this new recording is award-winning artist Nikolai Lugansky’s first Tchaikovsky recital on record. Though less well-known than his operas or his orchestral compositions, Tchaikovsky’s piano music nonetheless contains essential works, such as the 'The Seasons' cycle and the 'Grand Sonata', featured here. Composed at a period of crisis in the composer‘s personal life, they illustrate two quite different aspects of his style: on the one hand we have the fashionable worldliness of 'The Seasons', pieces that almost belong to the genre of salon music; on the other, we see him ambitiously grappling with the classical sonata, in the tradition of his illustrious predecessors, Liszt, Schumann, Chopin.

Performed using gut strings, the Dudok Quartet’s Tchaikovsky String Quartet cycle is notable for the ‘new ‘sound world they reveal. There is a raw naturalness to the sound together with an intimacy that steel strings cannot match.

The Trio Zadig releases an elegantly romantic performance of Tchaikovsky’s Seasons. This is probably the most poetic and the most popular of all of Tchaikovsky’s works, with its twelve short pieces, one for each month of the year.

La force émotionnelle des Saisons de Tchaikovsky, racontée par le pianiste virtuose Dmitry Masleev
Dmitry Masleev souhaite dédicacer cet album à son premier enfant Adrian, qui est né en janvier 2023. « Je me souviens très bien de la toute première partition que j’ai reçue comme cadeau de mes parents, quand j’étais enfant : Les Saisons de Tchaïkovsky. Chaque morceau que je découvrais provoquait en moi une tempête d'émotions, une véritable euphorie ! Quand je regarde mon fils, je ressens la même énergie que celle que je ressentais dans mon enfance : la sincérité, la curiosité, la fascination pour chaque son vivant et magique… J’ai décidé d’enregistrer Les Saisons pour garder intacte cette sensation et la partager avec mon fils et le monde. » – D. Masleev

This album marks the great return to recording of the Moldovan pianist Alexander Paley, who now divides his time between the United States and France. He pays tribute here to Tchaikovsky, a composer whose music he has performed ever since he was a student at the Moscow Conservatory. His performances are a reference!

Tchaikovsky was, and in so many ways still is, a cult figure whose genius and artistry has been somewhat obscured by his celebrity status and the worldwide popularity of ‘Brand Tchaikovsky’ embodied in his symphonies, operas and ballet music.

As the creator of piano Peter Tchaikovsky in the West have become less well known than as Symphony or opera composer, are what may also remember that he has written besides a great Piano Sonata in practice only small character pieces and "Songs without Words" in the Russian romance style - which offer little incentive for sparkling virtuosity. For Lev Vinocour was an incentive to imagine the composer Tchaikovsky piano with his best series, the "seasons" and a selection of unknown internal and external processing.

Two of the most popular romantic Russian piano works from the mid-1870s are heard on this new album from the celebrated Barry Douglas.