Dmitry Masleev was born and raised in Ulan-Ude, a Siberian town located between Lake Baikal and the Mongolian border.
Compositional Technique
Each piece in Tchaikovsky's "The Seasons" has a title, and in the original issues, the publisher added poetic quatrains as epigraphs.
Composition History
Mussorgsky's symphonic poem "Night on Bald Mountain" was written in 1867 as an exercise for discussion with his colleagues in the Moguchaya Kuchka (Mighty Handful) and was not performed or published during his lifetime.
Historical Context
The Moguchaya Kuchka (Mighty Handful) was a group of Russian composers formed in 1862, including Modest Mussorgsky, César Cui, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Alexander Borodin, under the aegis of Mily Balakirev.
Composition History
Tchaikovsky's "The Seasons" was commissioned by the monthly magazine Nouvellist, which requested twelve pieces to be published as an appendix to each issue for the year 1876.
Performer Biography
Dmitry Masleev, the pianist on this album, launched his international career by winning the 2015 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow.
Composer Biography
Mikhail Glinka, who gave Russian music its two great national operas, "A Life for the Tsar" and "Ruslan and Ludmila," took piano lessons from John Field, the creator of the piano nocturne.
You might also enjoy...
NOCTURNES
Shades of Night
Rachmaninoff: Complete Original Solo Piano Works, Vol. 1 – The Early Years
