This CD makes an impressive introduction to a wide-range of piano music from four popular Russian composers. The instrument was vital to their artistic expression. All of them produced a series of piano sonatas, concertos and smaller scale works.
Nina Kavtaradze’s public career began as a student of the Central School of Music for gifted children in Moscow when she was only six years old. She later graduated from the Moscow Conservatory where one of her teachers was the famous Russian pianist Lev Oborin (1907-1974). She is therefore in a direct line of descent from Liszt, by way of Busoni, Oborin’s teacher.
Her repertoire is extensive and includes Bach and Mozart. However her main focus is the classic-romantic music of Chopin, Schumann and Brahms. As this CD shows, she also has a strong affinity with the Russian pianists of the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Kavtaradze is equally at home in the recital room as she is on the concert stage and has given concertos with many of the great conductors including Charles Groves, Kurt Sanderling and Mariss Jansons.
She has performed widely across the former Soviet Union, Europe and the United States. Kavtaradze is now settled in Copenhagen and has become a well-loved and highly respected figure in Danish musical life. Her style is ‘challenging, grand and daring’. She is deemed to carry the torch of the ‘great Moscow piano style’ which includes Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels and Radu Lupu.
Tchaikovsky is represente
d on this CD by two contrasting pieces. The first is a haunting nocturne, ‘Rêverie du Soir’ which was composed when he was staying at his sister’s estate in the Ukraine and the other is the rhythmic ‘Humoresque’. Both pieces are not amongst the composer’s best-known music.
After the early ‘Elégie’ written in 1892, Kavtaradze plays five of Rachmaninov’s Preludes. This includes the pot-boiler in C# minor which the composer wished he had never written. The performance of the Op.23 No. 6 in E flat major is particularly inspired. The last of her selection of Preludes is the G minor from Op.23 which splendidly contrasts the opening ‘alla marcia’ with the romantic and lyrical ‘middle section’.
The main contribution of Prokofiev is the
Sarcasms Op.17 which was composed in 1912-13. Maurice Hinson has noted that they ‘storm, rage and thunder throughout’. Kavtaradze gives these five pieces a typically melancholic performance that reflect their turbulent, percussive and gruff nature. Other samples of Prokofiev’s music include the brittle ‘Gavotte’, the broken-chord and glissando-filled ‘Harp’ prelude and the ruminative, Scriabin-esque ‘Legend’ from the Ten Pieces Op.12 (1913). Two other miniatures are the composer’s own arrangement of the March from
Love for Three Oranges and a single example of the
Visions Fugitives Op.22 (no.10).
Dmitri Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes Op.34 were composed in 1932/33. They were devised as repertoire for his own concerts. Typically, he gave excerpts from the cycle, however on occasion he through-played them. They have been well-described as being ‘a kaleidoscope of aphorism and varied stylistic expressions’. Certainly the mood varies between the dramatic and the witty.
This CD is nicely presented. The liner-notes are most helpful without being overly technical. There are brief biographical details about the pianist. A discography of a number of Kavtaradze’s performances includes the complete piano works of Richard Wagner and Modest Mussorgsky, the Piano Concerto No.3 by Herman D. Koppel and two of Brahms’ Sonatas. There is a detailed listing of her recordings on her
website.
John France
Track listing
Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840–1893)
Rêverie du Soir in G minor, Op. 19, No. 1 (1873) [5:20]
Humoresque in G major, Op. 10, No. 2 (1871-2) [3:06]
Sergei RACHMANINOV (1873–1943)
Elégie in E-flat minor, Op. 3, No. 1 (1892) [7:16]
Prelude in E-flat major, Op. 23, No. 6 (1903) [4:00]
Prelude in G-sharp minor, Op. 32, No. 12 (1910) [3:26]
Prelude In C-sharp minor, Op. 3, No. 2 (1892) [4:31]
Prelude in G major, Op. 32, No. 5 (1910) [3:33]
Prelude in G minor, Op. 23, No. 5 (1903) [4:37]
Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891–1953)
Gavotte in G minor, Op. 12, No. 2 (1908-1910) [3:05]
Legend in F major, Op. 12, No. 6 (1913) [3:34]
Prelude (Harp) in C major, Op. 12, No. 7(1913) [2:29]
Vision fugitive in B-flat minor, Op. 22, No. 10 (1915) [1:15]
March Op. 33 (arr. from
Love for Three Oranges by Prokofiev)
(1919) [1:42]
Sarcasms Op. 17 (1912-13) No. 1 Tempestoso [2:55], No. 2 Allegro rubato
[2:06], No. 3 Allegro precipitato [2:32], No. 4 Smanioso [3:02], No.
5 Precipitosissimo [3:30]
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975)
Ten Preludes from Op. 34 (1933) No. 1 in C major [1:29]; No. 2 in A
minor [1:09]; No. 6 in B minor [1:15]; No. 10 in C-sharp minor [2:30];
No. 13 in F-sharp major [1:03]; No. 14 in E-flat minor [2:31]; No. 15
in D-flat major [1:11]; No. 16 in B-flat minor [1:09]; No. 17 in A-flat
major [2:28]; No. 20 in C minor [0:50]
