Alexandre Tchérepnine : Musique pour piano (Intégrale – volume 3)

Piano International (Nov, 2013)
Russian-born Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) settled in Paris until the end of the Second World War, and the French influence is immediately evident in his music. His tours of the Far East also brought an Oriental tinge to his work. Despite the fact that this collection contains 39 tracks and could therefore be construed as rather bitty, its value is nonetheless enormous, and Giorgio Koukl is as fine a guide as one could hope for.

The first set we hear (Op 88) is wide-ranging in emotion, and it is only in the fifth movement that one encounters anything close to Russian melancholy. But that melancholy is certainly evident in the Feuilles libres …