Vladimir Feltsman - A Tribute to Tchaikovsky (2011)

It's a bit unclear what pianist Vladimir Feltsman means by calling this album A Tribute to Tchaikovsky, or by assertion that the "pieces in this recording were selected to be heard as a single composition"; they come from various parts of Tchaikovsky's career and do not really cohere as a single utterance. Nor are so many Tchaikovsky miniatures usually put together in this way; many of them were works of middling technical difficulty and fell into established patterns, mostly coming from Chopin, rather than getting into the deeper realms of Tchaikovsky's musical or psychological makeup. This said, Russian-American pianist Vladimir Feltsman has created an appealing recital, scaling the music back to chamber dimensions. As he writes in his notes, "It should be played and shared between friends." Feltsman is capable of unusual precision at the low dynamic levels heard here, and he crafts rather discursive readings, not lacking in lyricism, that uncover nice small details. The program is artfully arranged, with five pieces from the more melancholy and altogether more profound Op. 72 set at the end leaving a satisfying impression. Few would pick Tchaikovsky's solo piano music first among his works, but this is a modest recital that connoisseurs of his work in his own time or ours will enjoy.