Tchaikovsky: Grande Sonate & The Seasons

Featuring

Alexander Paley
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

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Composition History

Tchaikovsky's The Seasons, a set of 12 characteristic pieces for solo piano, was commissioned by Nikolay Bernard, a publisher for the St Petersburg journal Nuvellist, to be a musical calendar.

Compositional Technique

The Grande Sonate's first movement, Moderato e risoluto, includes a six-note motif from the Dies Irae, played exclusively in major, which gives it a less sombre mood than usual.

Composer's Artistic Vision

For each piece in The Seasons, the publisher Nikolay Bernard proposed a subtitle and a poetic epigraph, which Tchaikovsky accepted, reflecting the character and impressions of each month.

Performer Biography

Alexander Paley has won several major awards, including First Prize at the Leipzig International Bach Competition in 1984 and the Grand Prix at the first International Pancho Vladigerov Competition in Bulgaria in 1986.

Composition History

Tchaikovsky's Grande Sonate was composed in March-April 1878 in Clarens (Switzerland) and Kamenka (Ukraine), between his opera Eugene Onegin and the Fourth Symphony, and at the same time as his Violin Concerto.

Performer Biography

Alexander Paley, the pianist on this recording, was born in Kishiniev, Moldova, and began piano studies at age 6, giving his first recital at 13 and winning the National Music Competition of Moldova at 16.

Performer Biography

Alexander Paley directs two annual festivals: one at the Moulin d'Andé in Normandy, France, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2011, and another in Richmond, Virginia (USA), started in 1998.