Composer-executant recordings always attract interest and when the figure 
concerned is Alexander Tcherepnin, no mean pianist, and no mean composer either, 
that enthusiasm is not misplaced. These recordings were made in a period between 
1967 and 1973 in the Salle Wagram in Paris and attest to some highly congenial 
chamber sessions with elite collaborators and colleagues.

A number of these sessions are very well known to those who follow either 
composer or some of the musicians who associated with him on disc. Very 
recently, for instance, the Piano Trio, Duo and Solo Suite were all reissued in 
an EMI box of 20 CDs devoted to Paul Tortelier [EMI 6 88627 2].

Tcherepnin’s chamber works from the mid-1920s are fascinatingly terse. The Piano 
Quintet alternates between the outer movements’ cagey attacks and the weary 
pizzicato drip of the central Allegretto. The bustle and drama of the finale, in 
particular, is brilliantly conveyed by the composer and the Groupe Instrumental 
de Paris. The Second Quartet of 1926 is similarly given over to moments of 
jagged attack, unsettled, compressed in scale. Again Tcherepnin utilises 
pizzicato in the central movement as a good contrastive and colouristic device 
before returning to the biting motifs with which the work began. All over in 
fewer than eleven minutes too.

Tcherepnin’s Trio (Yan Pascal and Paul Tortelier, the composer himself) is a 
refined opus with insinuating warmth and a folkloric finale in big boots. It’s 
notable how the composer pumps out the pervasive treble writing in the opening 
movement – very percussive. The folkloric hints in the slow movement only 
develop after an uneasy start, but are more obvious in the finale. The Duo for 
violin and cello sports some real introspection in its central Moderato, whilst 
the solo suite is a multi-faceted soliloquy with folk drive, drones and 
elemental pizzicato in its exciting lexicon. And the solo Suite for cello, so 
richly portrayed by Paul Tortelier is a six minute work that opens with a 
quasi-cadenza and includes a rather austerely lovely Largo.

The second disc gives us Tcherepnin’s solo piano works, starting with the 1919 
First Sonata. There’s more than just a touch of Stravinsky about this, though 
the ‘homage’ element here is more frankly baroque than neo-classical in 
orientation. The powerfully assertive chordal writing of the second movement is 
notable, but so too is the cinematic brio of the scherzo and the gentle, almost 
childlike gravity of the finale. The four Préludes Nostalgiques (1922) evoke 
reverie - stalking left hand, twinkling right in the First – as well as more 
terse writing in the second. The Bagatelles are early works dating from just 
before the First World War, though the composer revised them in the late 1950s. 
These ten very brief pieces are certainly full of character, even if some of it 
is more pianistic than strictly musical. The best are the second, which seems to 
show awareness of Prokofiev, and the light-fingered and also light-hearted 
sixth. The final five piano works come from considerably later. The Prélude is a 
rolling toccata-boogie, an ostinato study of fulsome vehemence. And amidst the 
storm of his Opp.81, 85 and 88 works, we have the calm and balm of the earlier 
Op.56 No.7 Étude.

The disc is rounded off with some vocal works by Alexander’s composer father 
Nikolai in which Nicolai Gedda is the august singer. The piano sound here is 
rather different from what we have heard before, though the session was also in 
1973; the piano spectrum is, not unattractively, set slightly distantly, whereas 
before it was certainly up-front. The songs’ ethos is traditional late 
nineteenth century Russian, the climaxes are splendidly graded, the pianissimi 
haunting, the piano part, whether spare or darkening – as in Le Bouleau – worthy 
of note, and there is a vein of melancholy too, best exemplified by Chant 
d’automne.

This is a most handy restoration. Tcherepnin’s chamber and solo piano works have 
plenty of character and receiving the composer’s imprimatur - in a non–doctrinal 
sense - only adds to its desirability.

  --Jonathan Woolf