Tcherepnin Bis

Alexander Tcherepnin was a very good composer, and his six piano concertos, licensed from BIS for this Brilliant Classics release, constitute an impressive body of work, full of color, variety, and contrast. The first two are single-movement pieces, while in the third Tcherepnin expands the formal layout to two movements without exceeding the very modest length of his first two concertos. In the Fourth Concerto things get really interesting: it consists of three short tone poems based on Chinese stories and melodies. Now admit it, who can resist a slow movement called “Yan Kuei's Love Sacrifice”?

And here we have another winner in BIS's magnificent series of the symphonies and piano concertos of Alexander Tcherepnin. The music is marvelous, and the performances very good. To start with the two purely orchestral works, the Symphonic Prayer and the Magna mater are stylistically similar yet imaginative and written in a rather personal idiom. Both are based on chorale harmonies, but the music is nevertheless overall full of energy. No, there are no immediately memorable themes here, but both works are of the kind where you immediately appreciate every move and magnificently wrought detail…….

G.D @ Amazon.com

In BIS' Chinoiserie, pianist Jenny Lin brings one of the most compelling and relevant themed recitals to be heard on disc in years, a collection of pieces by Western composers that attempts to explore the subject of China in some regard, not only musically but culturally.

The Tcherepnin dynasty comprises Nikolai (1873-1945) the father, Alexander (1899-1977), the son and Ivan (1943-1998) and Sergei (b.1941), the sons of Alexander. Alexander grew up amid an affluent and musical family. Their home welcomed the leading artistic lights of Russian society. The 1917 Revolution changed everything for the Tcherepnins and they emigrated to Tbilisi, Georgia. In 1921 they moved to Paris where Alexander’s circle included Martinů and Tansman. Alexander lived in China and Japan between 1934 and 1937. He married the concert pianist Lee Hsien Ming and spent the war years in Paris. In 1948 he emigrated to the USA, living in Chicago and New York. My first encounter with the music of Alexander Tcherepnin came courtesy of …….

Rob Barnett @ musicweb-international.com

Captured in the Maly Hall of the Moscow Conservatory where much of Prokofiev's work was first heard, it's surprising to find so many aspects of the composer's style represented, from the Romanticism of the early Ballade through the spiky dissonances of Chout to the elegiac, unfinished Solo Sonata. Aided by characterful piano-playing by Tatyana Lazareva, Ivashkin's recital compares most favourably with his similar programme on Ode for which he was accompanied by a more reticent pianist; although the earlier disc includes the Concertino movement in the guise of Rostropovich's cello quintet arrangement, the absence of the Chout transmogrification makes the Chandos collection appear better value.