Tchaikovsky Plus One Vol.1 – Barry Douglas

   in Piano International (Jan, 2019)
This is the first volume in a short series of recordings, programmed by Barry Douglas as his personal homage to Russia. Each will pair one of Tchaikovsky’s major piano works with a significant other. In his booklet note, Douglas confirms Rachmaninov’s Moments musicaux will figure in a future volume, but here he has chosen the most significant of all 19th-century keyboard works, Musorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition. (Note from an Exhibition, not at – a literal translation of the Russian original rather than its typical Anglicised form).

Despite the focus on Tchaikovsky, it is Musorgsky’s epic suite – given here in its original form, uncorrected by Rimsky- Korsakov – that …