THE SINGAPORE COLLECTION: ALEXANDER TCHEREPNIN THE SYMPHONIES & PIANO CONCERTOS / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

ALEXANDER TCHEREPNIN

The Symphonies & Piano Concertos

Noriko Ogawa, Piano

Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Lan Shui

BIS 1717/18 (4 CDs)

TT: 4 hrs 34’09”

Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) may be said to have been the first truly cosmopolitan composer. Born to a musical and artistic family in Tsarist Saint Petersberg, his father was the composer, pianist and conductor Nikolai Tcherepnin (1873-1945), whose claim to fame was having taught composition to the young Sergei Prokofiev (who in turn dedicated his First Piano Concerto to him).

He lived for varying periods in Paris, the Caucasus, China and Japan before settling in America. He was married to the Chinese pianist Lee Hsien Ming (no relation to the Singapore Lees), and his music suitably reflected an eclecticism which encompassed late Romanticism, Stravinsky’s iconoclasm and neoclassicism, popular idioms such as jazz, tinged with a 1920s modernist outlook and generous helpings of Orientalism. He was a modernist in all senses but yet never embraced atonalism or the vagaries of the avant-garde.

The recordings were originally issued singly,
and this was the first instalment.

The ten major works in this box-set (4 discs at the cost of 2) are four symphonies and six piano concertos. The symphonies date from 1927 to 1959 while the piano concertos from 1918 to 1965, suggesting a wide range of styles gestated over extended periods of time and covering multiple geographical localities. The shorter pieces include Magna Mater, Symphonic March, Symphonic Prayer, and Festmusik (a 4-movement suite from opera The Wedding of Sobeide).

The second disc to be released.

The four symphonies are heard in the first two discs, sandwiching the Fifth and Sixth Piano Concertos. For a taste of his iconoclasm, sample the riotous second movement (Vivace) of the First Symphony (1927), entirely scored for percussion. Its influence by Le Sacre du Printemps also effected the same response – a demonstration for which the police were called. For today’s ears, the idiom is rather palatable, no more modern than the likes of Milhaud, Prokofiev or John Williams.

Arguably the best-known among these are the Chinese influenced works – the Third Symphony (1952) and Fourth Piano Concerto (1947), subtitled Fantaisie. Chinoiserie is rife in the Chinese Symphony, as much as in Stravinsky’s Le Chant du Rossignol, but there is much lyricism in its Adagio slow movement. The concerto, which appears as the last item of the fourth disc, is more programmatic with movements having descriptive titles. The first is Eastern Chamber Dream, portraying Wu Song’s legendary vanquishing of the killer tiger. Tang dynasty royal concubine Yan Kuei Fei’s Sacrifice is the subject of the central slow movement, while the pentatonic rondo-like Road To Yunnan closes the work on a high. These are so accessible as to make one wonder why this concerto isn’t more regularly heard or performed.

Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa
is highly attuned to Tcherepnin's musical idiom.

The first two piano concertos are in a single movement (bringing to mind Rimsky-Korsakov and Prokofiev’s First) while the third is in two movements. The last three concertos are in the traditional three movements where the idiom is closer to Prokofiev. Pianist Noriko Ogawa is the fearless and swashbuckling soloist in these technically highly demanding works. The six concertos may be heard in chronological sequence on two discs issued on the Brilliant Classics label (9232), something which pianophiles may opt for. There was an earlier cycle by British pianist Murray McLachlan with the orchestra of Chetham’s School, issued on two Olympia discs in the mid-1990s, which is good but SSO provides superior orchestral support.

If you want just the piano concertos,
here's the budget double-CD set to get.

This project was the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s first collaboration with the Swedish BIS label, with recordings dating from 1999 to 2002. The first of its recorded symphonic cycles, the orchestra performs with finesse and total conviction. Now in the Twenty-twenties, Lan Shui and our national orchestra still has the field to themselves, and are unlikely to be challenged in this repertoire for decades to come. Classics Today.com’s Dave Hurwitz also agrees on this count too!