#tcherepnin

[mikrokosmos]

classical morning playlist

been putting together some favorites to start the day with. what would you add to this list?

[musicainextenso]

Today on Russian composers week, I want to look at two names that worked on the same project. When Sergei Diaghilev was putting together the Ballet Russe, he wanted to bring to the Paris audience a “Russian” sound, and the composer he originally looked at was Nikolai Tcherepnin. He showed Tcherepnin the story for the Firebird, and the inspired composer went to work sketching out ideas. Unfortunately, Diaghilev soon discovered the music of Straivnsky, and wanted to work with him instead. But thankfully, instead of tossing out the music or locking it away in a cabinet, Tcherepnin threaded his sketches together into a symphonic poem The Enchanted Kingdom. It feels like a very hazy daydream, wisps of dragonfly wings through the fog haze, and the night is alive. With a language that shows the eerie bridge between late Russian Romanticism and Scriabin’s mystic works, Tcherepnin shows the kind of other-worldly sounds that Russian orchestral textures were going toward.

Stay tuned for more Russian composers this week on musicainextenso!

- Nick O., Guest Editor

[vernajarrett]

This lovely, wistful, yearning piece of music is my latest obsession. My favourite version is conducted by Stanislav Kochanovsky. The composer is Nikolai Tcherepnin, who wrote the piece Prelude to La Princesse Iointaine Op.4 in 1896 to accompany the play of the same name by Rostand. It is deeply romantic and narratively rich.