Three Generations
Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977)
Romance for violin and piano, WoO (1922)*
Élégie for violin and piano, Op.43 (1927) *
Arabesque for violin and piano, Op.11, No.5 (1921) *
Sonata in F major for violin and piano, Op.14 (1921)
Nikolai Tcherepnin (1873-1945)
Poème lyrique for violin and piano, Op.9 (1900)
Andante and Finale for violin and piano, Op. posth. (1943) *
Ivan Tcherepnin (1943-98)
Pensiamiento for flute and piano (1996)
Cadenzas in Transition for flute, clarinet and piano (1963)*
Quan Yuan (violin), Sue-Ellen Hershman-Tcherepnin (flute), Ian Greitzer (clarinet), David Witten, Donald Berman (piano)
rec. 1997-2019, various locations
*First recordings
TOCCATA NEXT TOCN0012 [64]
This intriguing CD represents a quite astonishing musical family from Russia, and reflects on classical music over the last century from Romanticism to serialism and electronic music. Each of the Tcherepnin clan had an individual personality and a style epitomising the diverse trends of twentieth-century music. Of all three composers, Nikolai Tcherepnin is the most successful in writing beautifully late Romantic scores in the shadow of Rimski-Korsakov and Lyadov. He could have been even more successful had he not had competition from Prokofiev and Stravinsky in the first decades of his career.
Apart from his composing career, Tcherepnin was an outstanding conductor, pianist and teacher; it is significant that he was the first professor of conducting at the St Petersburg Conservatoire, bringing up the first group of Russian conductors: Gauk, Shaporin, Prokofiev and Saminsky. Notably, Gauk became a legendary teacher, bringing forth a huge number of outstanding Russian conductors including Mravinsky. From a wealthy family associated with Dostoyevsky and Mussorgsky, Nikolai was set to become a lawyer; however, after graduating in law from St Petersburg University, he resolved to study composition with Rimsky-Korsakov and piano with K.K. Fan-Arkh.
Diaghilev appointed him as the principal conductor in the opening seasons of Ballets Russes which staged Tcherepnin’s ballets Le Pavilion d’Armide and Narcisse in 1909 and 1911, showcasing Vaslav Nijinsky. These two ballets represented the height of his success as a composer, after which he struggled to replicate the success of these works or develop his creativity. Following the 1917 revolution, after a sojourn in Tbilisi, Tcherepnin took his family to France where he spent the remainder of his career often struggling to make a living and falling into the permanent lifestyle of a Russian émigré in Paris. He conducted at Covent Garden and the Mariinsky Theatre from 1909, and the premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockrell in Paris, where he founded the Russian Conservatoire and taught conducting there into the 1930s. He also toured the United States; however, a deterioration in his hearing led to the premature end of his musical career.
Of the chamber pieces on this recording, his Poème lyrique dates from his most successful composing spell in 1900. The work is late Romantic and explores tonality from the opening C major, closing in the same key; in its emotional pull, the composer searches for rising sequences and expressive appoggiaturas in both the violin and piano. He quotes Twilight, one of his Romances from his Op. 16 collection of songs based on Tyutchev. Numerous climaxes develop, experimenting with rubato; the piece is attractive, and makes one want to look out more of Tcherepnin’s chamber works. This was the work which arrested the attention of his compatriots and of the distinguished violin teacher Leopold Auer.
The other work by Nikolai Tcherepnin here is from the other end of his career: the Andante and Finale, which dates from the war years in Paris and is impressionistic in style, harking back to Ravel and Debussy with rippling waves of water and rustling leaves in the forest in the Andante, yet in the Finale, we are in the world of a Russian folk tale full of festivities and upbeat, joyous dancing, closing in a burst of buoyant exuberance.
Alexander Tcherepnin joined his father in emigrating and lived the first fifty years of his life in France, becoming ‘a musical citizen of the world’ and enjoying a busy career of touring, yet never losing his Russian origins in his creativity. Menuhin described him as, ‘a distinguished composer, original in concept and expression, whose works reflect a synthesis of many cultures.’ All four pieces on this disc are from the 1920s; the Romance (1922) was later arranged for violin and orchestra and here explores modernist techniques of six-note, ‘hexachordal’ scales.
He later explained his ‘hexachordal’ scale in his ‘Basic Elements of My Musical Language’, writing that ‘I had the tendency and the urge to combine major and minor chords. Only a major-minor tetrachord gave me the sensation of finality and of stability.’ Certainly, his music is spectacular and remains with one after one has listened to its shadowy world of harmonies. The Élégie dates from 1927 following writing his Symphony No. 1, ‘Like a race horse after a long race, I was unable to stop the creative imagination, and to smooth it down, composed an Elegy for Violin and Piano.’ Here the composer is more melancholy, and uses his own definition of ‘interpoint.’
The Arabesque, is from a set of five pieces, of which only the fifth is for violin and piano (recorded here); the others are for piano, and are upbeat, sparkling with charm. The Violin Sonata (1921) was dedicated to Adila d’Aranyi Fachiri (her younger sister was Jelly) and a great-niece of Joseph Joachim. This is one of the most masterly works on this disc with contrasting themes exploring tonal centres from F major to F minor, while in the Larghetto the idiom is subdued with an intensity which reaches a dramatic fortissimo and ends on A major. The third movement, Vivace, reprises the syncopated theme of the opening movement yet transforms into an upbeat, festivity typical of a Russian dance, and before the close, sharp-edged hexachordal scales are heard on the keyboard, closing on a celebratory F major.
Ivan Tcherepnin was born in Paris during the war and studied with his parents and later at Harvard with Boulez and Stockhausen. Among his teaching appointments in San Francisco and Stanford, he was Director of Harvard’s Electronic Music Studio. He wrote for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Chang. He performed on piano, psaltery, Persian santur and synthesisers and enjoyed a busy career in both the USA and Europe. Pensamiento dates from 1996 and is devoted to uniting North and South, and reflects on the Condor flying in the high Andean peaks.
Cadenzas in Transition is for Piano, Flute and Clarinet is a beautifully written piece, and makes one regret that he died so young.
The performances here date between 2019 and 2021, with those by Ivan Tcherepnin recorded live, and all are clearly recorded with very fine performances by Quan Yuan on violin accompanied by David Witten (who also wrote the very informative notes). The pieces by Ivan Tcherepnin are played by one of the composer’s relatives, Sue-Ellen Hershman-Tcherepnin, on the flute with her partners Ian Greitzer on clarinet and Donald Berman. This very fine release is recommended to all enthusiasts of twentieth-century music. For further information on the Tcherepnin family, my article is available here.
Gregor Tassie
Previous review: Steve Arloff
