Alexander TCHEREPNIN (1899-1977)
Cello
Sonata No. 1, Op.29 [11:30]
Cello
Sonata No. 2, Op.30/1 [11:50]
Cello
Sonata No. 3, Op.30/2 [11:38]
Twelve Preludes Op.38 [24:17]
Suite for Cello Solo Op.76 [6:46]
Mystère Op.37/2 [9:53]
Marina Tarasova (cello)
Ivan Sokolov (piano)
rec. November 2020/May 2021, Moscow, Russia
NORTHERN FLOWERS NFPMA99144 [76:17]
The great music critic Edward Greenfield wrote that he always approached music new to him with the idea that he would like and enjoy it. So do I, and I am rarely very disappointed. With the music on this disc, I was hooked with the first few notes and knew I would thoroughly enjoy it. It fairly grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and took me on a breathtakingly frenetic ride for most of the first movement of the first sonata. Afterwards, I could only utter an internalised ‘WOW!’.
The music sounds thoroughly contemporary. Had I read that it had been composed last year, I would have happily accepted it. Well, the first two sonatas were written in 1924, and the third completed in 1926 but begun in 1919. This merited another WOW. The first sonata held me literally spellbound. If there were another life to be had then I would love to be a composer and write music as good as these three sonatas. They must be heard. When you do, you will understand how inadequate I feel trying to express my excitement.
I came across Alexander Tcherepnin’s name on a vinyl record that included one of his piano sonatas, back in the 1970s. Much later, I was fortunate to review eight discs from 2012 with his complete piano sonatas played by the eminent Giorgio Koukl. I became even more enamoured of Tcherepnin’s music. Personally, I find there is a particular, easy to identify, sound world shared by Russian and Soviet composers. Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Weinberg come readily to mind, and I would add Tcherepnin.
The second sonata begins in a much more relaxed and serious mood, and the piano is an equal partner. The music is quite sorrowful. The slow movement keeps this mood, while the concluding Vivace lives up to its name; it is vigorous, and the piano plays a prominent role in helping to set the pace.
The third sonata begins with a lilting, lyrical melody carried through the entire first movement. The piano introduces a more agitated angle halfway through. The cello responds to it and manages to calm things down until the movement ends in a flourish and then fades out. The second movement has a finely shaped lyrical quality. The finale reprises the main theme from the first movement but becomes altogether more frenetic before ending abruptly.
The Twelve Preludes, brief but complex, have a great deal to say in a tiny time frame. This composer never fails to achieve whatever he sets out to do. The pieces, known as The Well-tempered Cello, were written in 1925-1926. Each has a distinct character as the composer explores all the modal scales of his own invented nine-note system.
The Suite for Cello Solo from 1946 reflects the composer’s many years spent in China. Its distinctive melodies evoke age-old music history of this ancient civilisation.
The disc closes with Mystère. It is beautiful and enigmatic, with fast sections that surely tax the performers. They carry those off with aplomb, as they do the reflective passages that live up to the piece’s title.
Oddly enough, the accompanying notes discuss two works that do not appear on the disc, very much as if they did.
This is a fabulous, rewarding programme. The performers are totally in tune with each other, musically showing mutual respect and an obvious love for the music. Marina Tarasova’s cello produces a wonderfully warm tone. She can plumb the depths of her instrument to produce gorgeously rich sounds. Her playing is astonishing, muscular when called for, supple in the gentler passages. Ivan Sokolov easily meets the challenges the writing presents. The recording is crisp and clear.
It is brilliant that more and more of Tcherepnin’s music is being recorded, and all of it shows how thoroughly rounded a musician he was. Highly recommended.
Steve Arloff
