Noriko Ogawa - Alexander Tcherepnin: Piano Concertos (2011)

Alexander Tcherepnin was a very good composer, and his six piano concertos, licensed from BIS for this Brilliant Classics release, constitute an impressive body of work, full of color, variety, and contrast. The first two are single-movement pieces, while in the third Tcherepnin expands the formal layout to two movements without exceeding the very modest length of his first two concertos. In the Fourth Concerto things get really interesting: it consists of three short tone poems based on Chinese stories and melodies. Now admit it, who can resist a slow movement called “Yan Kuei's Love Sacrifice”?
In his last two concertos Tcherepnin returns to the traditional, three-movement form and enriches them with abundant and attractive thematic material. The style is essentially Russian romantic/modern (think Prokofiev), except of course in the Fourth Concerto. It's a mystery why this music isn't better known, but these excellent performances from Noriko Ogawa and the Singapore Symphony under Lan Shui certainly should help. Brilliant Classics' budget price and recoupling of all the concertos on two CDs (originally they appeared in connection with other orchestral works) also should appeal to collectors who don't want to make a huge investment. The engineering is perhaps a touch low-level, but otherwise nearly perfect. -- David Hurwitz