Denis Matsuev and Friends interpret Tchaikovsky and Taneyev

For this concert, pianist Denis Matsuev invited Valeriy Sokolov—a young Ukrainian violin prodigy who in recent years has become an international star—and violinist Boris Brovtsyn, a regular of many famous music festivals. Other invitees include Yulia Deyneka, principal violist of the Berliner Staatsoper, Boris Andrianov, described by Mstislav Rostropovich as one oft he greatest cellists of his generation, and the rising star of Russian piano, Philipp Kopachevsky. With so many great Eastern European artists, it’s little surprise that the concert brimmed full of the ardor, incandescence and high emotion associated with Russian temperaments!

Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor is the composer’s only work for this instrumentation. He composed the work in 1881 after learning of the death of his great friend and renowned Russian pianist Nicolas Rubinstein. More melancholic than funereal, the work’s virtuosic piano part seems to embody the artist who inspired its creation. The second of the three movements that make up this Trio includes a musical portrait of Rubinstein, whose theme played by solo piano is then elaborated upon in eleven variations. The result is a brilliant œuvre characteristic of Tchaikovsky, whose emotional connection with his friend renders the work particularly moving.

Often called the “Russian Brahms,” like his namesake Sergei Taneyev was a great admirer of the work of J.S. Bach and other early works. His excellent mastery of counterpoint and the art of the fugue once led him to explain to his teacher, Tchaikovsky, how Bach’s fugual variations of Tchaikovsky’s Trio in A minor would have been different! Taneyev’s Piano Quintet in G minor, written in 1911, demonstrates the composer’s extravagant technical prowess, but also his lyrism and charm.

Photo : © Yannick Perrin.