Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Lyadov & Skryabin: Russian Piano Music

Featuring

Alexander Warenberg
Vanessa Benelli Mosell
Marco Rapetti
Akane Makite
Modest Mussorgsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Sergei Prokofiev
Anatoly Lyadov
Alexander Scriabin

Did you know?

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Compositional Technique

Anatol Lyadov's '24 Variations and Finale on a Simple Theme' for piano is written for three hands and includes contributions from Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, César Cui, and even Franz Liszt.

Compositional Technique

Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition' features 'Promenades' that irregularly interrupt the musical flow, reflecting the composer's own 'physiognomy' as he imagines walking through the art exhibition.

Composer Biography

Claude Debussy, a French composer, greatly admired Modest Mussorgsky's music and worked as a resident pianist for Nadezhda von Meck, Pyotr Tchaikovsky's sponsor, from 1880 to 1882.

Composition History

Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition' was inspired by a commemorative exhibition of about four hundred works by his friend Viktor Aleksandrovich Hartmann, who died suddenly in 1873.

Composer Biography

Aleksandr Skryabin's Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor Op. 6 was composed in 1892, motivated by his 'grudges against fate and God' due to a persistent repetitive strain injury in his right hand.

Composition History

Pyotr Tchaikovsky composed 'The Seasons' (Twelve Character Pieces) op. 37a after accepting a commission from the St Petersburg music journal Nuvellist to create a piano miniature for each month of the year.