Alexander Tcherepnin

Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 3
Festmusik
Symphonic March

Singapore Symphony Orchestra/Lan Shui;
Noriko Ogawa (piano)

BIS CD - 1317

Bis has a policy of latching onto a composer and doing him proud with multiple releases. Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977), originally Georgian, was a prolific professional composer/pianist, a traveller through the vicissitudes of his century's music in Europe, the Middle East, and USA.

This is a fair sampler and it may well whet your appetite for more. The first concerto is unashamedly romantic, a single movement display piace which might go down well in the conservatoires, but probably won't ever resume its early popularity in the concert hall.

The 3rd was too acerbic for its early 1930s audiences, but I liked it a lot and would regard it as highly viable for revival; it would probably succeed in The Proms with their more adventurous concertgoers.

Noriko Ogawa is the ideal soloist and I'd like to hear her on the 5th & 6th, which we are told achieve 'a masterly synthesis' of his successive styles as he repeatedly re-invented himself...

Peter Grahame Woolf