B. Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio, Cello Sonata & Solo Cello Suite

Album review

It can't be easy being a musician called Tchaikovsky who isn't Pyotr Ilyich... Because there is also a Boris Tchaikovsky (1925-1996), no relation, who studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory with Lev Oborine, composition with Miakovsky, Shebalin and, of course, Shostakovich. After a serialist period in the 1970s, he (re)turned to a more firmly expressive music, marked by tonality, but without rejecting modern techniques. This Piano Trio, written in 1953, is the clearest evidence of his debt to Shostakovitch. But soon after that, he would develop a fuller, more personal lyricism, with his Sonata for Cello and Piano (1957, dedicated to Weinberg). As for the Suite for Solo Cello, it doesn't yet bear the stamp of his famous teacher; Boris Tchaikovsky wrote it in 1946 at the request of a fellow student at the Conservatory, one Mstislav Rostropovitch. These works are given an ardent treatment by Cellis Christopher Marwood, one of the founder members of the Vanbrugh Quartet from 1985. For the Trio, the substantial violin part is taken on by Haik Kazazyan, a winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition (the other Tchaikovsky...), Wieniawski and Long-Thibaud. On the piano, Olga Solovieva, who won the Best Accompaniment prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition (still the other one), and then won the Boris Tchaikovsky prize. © SM/Qobuz