shura cherkassky

SHURA CHERKASSKY
The Historic 1940s Recordings
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Shura Cherkassky (1909-1995)
Born in Odessa on October 17, 1909,* Shura Cherkassky was among the last of the post-Romantic tradition of master pianists. At the age of five he composed a five-act opera, and at ten he conducted a symphony
orchestra. In 1922 he immigrated to the United States, where he met Harold Randolph, director of the
Baltimore Conservatory. Randolph was so impressed by the boy’s talent that he arranged to have critics hear
him perform. Astonished by Cherkassky’s prodigious talent, these critics arranged for the youngster to give a
public recital at the Lyric Theater in Baltimore on March 3, 1923. Two other concerts, both to sold-out houses, followed, and a performance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in Chopin’s F minor concerto,
launched Cherkassky’s career. His New York debut in November 1923 was pronounced by many critics as one
of the most extraordinary musical events in recent memory. Olin Downes, in recalling that New York debut,
spoke of the “delightful naturalness, ease, tonal beauty and sheer instinct of what was artistic” in the performance of the boy.
Among the pianists who heard Cherkassky at that time were Ernest Hutcheson, Ignaz Friedman, Ignacy
Jan Paderewski, Sergei Rachmaninov, Leopold Godowsky and Vladimir De Pachmann, who unanimously
pronounced him an outstanding pianist. In 1924, Cherkassky was honored with a scholarship to the Curtis
Institute in Philadelphia where he became a pupil of the renowned Josef Hofmann, himself a student of
Anton Rubinstein. After his debut concert tour in 1923, Cherkassky appeared with Walter Damrosch and the
New York Symphony, and was asked to give a command performance at The White House for President
Warren G. Harding. Hofmann’s guidance strengthened and expanded the young pianists musicality, prompting Olin Downes to write after Cherkassky’s New York concert of December 14, 1926: “Shura Cherkassky is
more than an imitative and facile young player, and more than an infant phenomenon of the not infrequent
description. There is no question of his exceptional gifts.” Cherkassky was invited to play again at The White
House, this time for President and Mrs. Herbert Hoover. In 1929, 1932 and again in 1935, Cherkassky
undertook concert tours in Europe. In 1936 he undertook a world tour, revisiting Europe and including Asai,
Australia, South Africa and the Soviet Union. Critics praised his “poetical playing” and “formidable virtuosity.”
Shura Cherkassky’s enormous popularity in Germany and Austria, sprang from his first major European
tour after the War in 1946, when a concert in Hamburg established him as one of the leading pianists of the
*In many sources, Cherkassky’s birth year is listed as 1911. However, Ms. Christa Phelps of the Cherkassky Estate
has confirmed that Cherkassky’s parents added two years to his actual birthdate in order to make his concert performances as a child prodigy more spectacular. The deception as to real birth year remained for the rest of his career.
Mr. Cherkassky, in his last years, confided in Ms. Phelps that he was not born in 1911, but in 1909!
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Shura Cherkassky (January 14, 1946)
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day. During the 1940s, Cherkassky made his home in the Los
Angeles area, where he lived on Sierra Bonita in the
Hollywood Hills. He was a frequent contributor to the musical life of Los Angeles, appearing at the Hollywood Bowl, in
Santa Monica, the Philharmonic Auditorium and the Wilshire
Ebell Theater. The audiences and critics seem to have loved
everything Cherkassky would perform. The reviews which
appeared in the press were full of praise: “His keyboard
prowess was fabulous, his command of every variety of touch
— in chords, in passage work or in sustained melodic passages
— was infinitely and uniquely varied, and in sheer sensuous
beauty of sound his tone quality was unsurpassed.”
Through a mutual friend, sculptress Malvina Hoffman,
Cherkassky met Eugenie Blanc and they were married in
1946. Mrs. Eugenie Blanc Cherkassky became Cherkassky’s
promoter and manager, and managed the careers of a number
of other prominent musicians as well, including Earl Wild.
The marriage, however, lasted only a short time and ended in
1948 in a somewhat public divorce. The Los Angeles Examiner
wrote the following:
She spent $27,000 to bring success to Shura Cherkassky, concert pianist, only to be discarded, Mrs. Eugenie Blanc Cherkassky
Cherkassky (late 1920s)
testified in court. “I owned a pharmacy which I sold for $27,000
to pay for his musical education — but when the money was gone
so was he,” she told Judge Thurmond Clarke, who granted her a divorce. Mrs. Cherkassky claimed her husband
earned some $7,000 in one month in 1947, but gave her only $150 of the sum. Cherkassky did not contest her
divorce plea, but a dispute arose over how much alimony the wife should get. The judge decided it should be over
10 percent of his net earning for two years.
When asked about his marriage in a 1990 interview, Cherkassky said: “It is difficult to be tied down to anyone when you play, unless the spouse is willing to be reduced to a servant. What does anyone get out of that?”
Cherkassky’s acclaim only increased in the 1950s and 1960s. All over Europe Cherkassky had his following of enthusiastic admirers, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. He regularly performed at the prestigious music festivals of Europe, including those of London, Salzburg, Bergen, Zagreb, Carinthia and Vienna.
As part of the 1955/56 season at the Hans Huber-Saal in Basel, Shura Cherkassky joined pianists Alexander
Borowsky, Rudolf Firkusny, Yury Boukoff, and Stefan Askenase in a series of recitals presenting the entire
piano works of Chopin. During this period he also collaborated with some of the world’s most distinguished
conductors: Comissiona, Dorati, Giulini, Haitink, Karajan, Kempe, Leinsdorf, Ormandy, Shostakovich, Sir
Adrian Boult, Sir Charles Groves and Sir Georg Solti.
Shura Cherkassky’s concert career encompassed the entire musical world. In addition to Europe, he made
several tours throughout the Far East, including China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and Japan. He also
toured Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India. His triumphant return to his native Russia in 1976
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had great emotional significance for him, and he was re-invited for subsequent tours in 1977 and 1979.
Early in 1976 Shura Cherkassky returned to the United States after an absence of ten years. His New York
recital was received with such resounding acclaim that he devoted an important part of each season to North
America. An international artist might be expected to remain stationary during his holidays, but not
Cherkassky. His passion for constant travel took him to Afghanistan, Thailand, Israel, Egypt, the Greek
Islands, the African Coast, Northern Europe, the South Pacific, Latin and South America, Siberia and China.
In 1990 he was asked whether his playing had undergone any dramatic changes. Cherkassky replied with candor: “Yes, I think so. I’m not as erratic as before. I used to be too free, with too many changes in dynamics
and tempo, and now I try to curb myself. I’m also playing better.”
Shura Cherkassky, died in London, on December 27, 1995. Writing in Gramophone, music critic and
long-time friend, Bryce Morrison stated: “Few, if any pianists, have made music so entirely their own, coloring and projecting every bar and note with an instantly recognizable zest and brio. Rejoicing in spontaneity
and listening askance to younger colleagues with set and inflexible ideas, he could turn a work — whether a
Beethoven sonata, a Chopin Scherzo, a contemporary offering or a delectable trifle from a bygone age by
Rebikov or Albéniz-Godowsky — this way and that, reflecting its contours and tints as if through some
revolving prism... Musically speaking he was one life’s great adventurers, tirelessly seeking out novel angles,
nooks and crannies, deploying a heaven-sent cantabile (“Nobody seems to care about sound any more,”
Cherkassky once lamented) and, at his greatest, complementing his plethora of ideas with a rich and transcendental pianism.”
Over his long career, Shura Cherkassky recorded for London/Decca, Nimbus, Vox, Deutsche
Grammophon, L’Oiseau-Lyre, Reader’s Digest, HMV, Concert Hall Society, Cupol, Columbia, RCA Victor
and Tudor. Cherkassky’s earliest recordings were made in the 1920s for Victor Records. In the 1930s he
recorded with cellist Marcel Hubert, the premiere recording of Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata, which received
admiration and praise from the composer. In the 1940s he recorded for the Swedish label Cupol, for the
American Vox label, and for HMV in England. It is his rarely heard recordings from the 1940s that are featured on this Ivory Classics® release. Cherkassky’s 1982 San Francisco Recital is also available from Ivory
Classics® 70904.
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The Music and Recordings
All of the performances heard on this two-CD set were recorded by Shura Cherkassky during the 1940s.
This was a particularly active period for Cherkassky. He performed frequently in his home-base of Los Angeles
and made numerous appearances in New York and most American music centers. After the war, Cherkassky
made extensive tours of Europe and was a favorite in Scandinavia, where he recorded some of the discs included on this release. Because there are so many short compositions by many different composers on these two
CDs, the notes on the music are organized alphabetically for ease of accessibility.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Those who are fond of arranging and organizing things according to initial letters have called attention
to the fact that the names of three great German masters of music begin with the letter “B”. In chronological
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as well as alphabetical succession they are: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms. The first is the master of polyphony and
the fugue; the second of the monophonic style and sonata-form; the third was a master of a more modern
contrapuntal construction and of the forms of his classical predecessor, at the same time showing unusual
power to make the form fit the musical idea.
Brahms wrote in practically every style of music, for orchestra, chamber music, large choral works, songs,
and for the piano. He did not write for the dramatic stage, and but little for the organ. His highest opus number is 121. Many of these opuses contain several numbers and in addition there are numerous works without
opus numbers. In all there are upwards of 500 separate compositions. Brahms was deeply interested in the
technique of piano playing all his life, and he seems to have secured from the instrument the utmost fullness
of effect. Many great artists agree that Brahms is an essential contributor to piano literature.
“This month,” wrote Clara Schumann, “has introduced us to a wonderful person, Brahms, a composer
from Hamburg, only twenty years of age... He played us sonatas, scherzos, and so on of his own, all of them
showing exuberant imagination, depth of feeling, and mastery of form... He has studied with Marxsen, but
what he played to us is so masterly that I feel that the good God sent him into the world ready made.” The
latest of the works played by the young Brahms to Robert and Clara Schumann was the Sonata No.3 in F
minor, Op.5 (DISC 1, 5 - 9 ) already his third essay in the form and indubitably the best of them. He had
come armed with introductions from Joachim at Hanover and Wasielievsky at Bonn, to be absorbed immediately into the Schumann household and to become Clara’s life-long friend after Robert’s early breakdown
and death. The new composer was boyish and impetuous, charming and earnest, a single-minded as well as
gifted musician. The F minor Sonata is an astonishing production for an adolescent. It remains to this day one
of Brahms’ most important works for solo piano, and whereas later the composer touched more intimate
depths and expressed himself with greater control, he never showed a livelier or more brilliant flame of inspiration. The opening movement spaciously contrasts a turbulent figure. Its attendant tune is broad and sweet
in melody. Out of them, in the middle section, Brahms distills a new melody in the bass. At the head of the
andante a verse is quoted from a poem by Sternau — “twilight, and the moon shining, with two loving hearts
in blissful unity.” The movement is a continuous outpouring of melodies, each giving rise to the next, until
a large-scale climax-tune is treated in full voice. The scherzo is a torrent of youthful vigor and restlessness; even
in the trio (marked only legato) the smoother subject only screens a smoldering fire, which readily breaks out
again in the bridge-passage to the da capo section. The interpolated Intermezzo has caused commentators
questioning speculations. The sub-title “Ruckblick” shows its intention — a sad reminiscence of what has
gone before, especially the Andante melody reviewed through gloomy eyes. Is it more than the normal despairing mood that comes over any aspirant adolescent? The music is effective and the first and last movements
are linked with uncommon skill. In the finale the agitated first subject is quieted for a time by a smoother
and more ordinary subject; its real substance, however, lies in a new melody in D-flat, suddenly announced
after the exposition, and destined to dominate the whole movement — indeed, the whole sonata.
Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944)
Cécile Louise Stéphanie Chaminade was born in Paris on August 8, 1857. She showed her musical talent at an early age and began to compose at the age of eight. Georges Bizet, upon seeing the first little works
that the eight-year-old Cécile had written, affectionately called her mon petit Mozart and did what he could
to assure that the promising prodigy was given solid musical training. Since at that time a number of classes at
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Cherkassky at Steinway headquarters in New York playing for musicians and critics, including
Willem Mengelberg, Ernest Hutcheson and Ignaz Friedman (March 31, 1923)
the Paris Conservatoire were prohibited to women students, Chaminade took private lessons in piano, violin
and ensemble playing with Félix Le Couppey, Joseph Marsick, and Augustin Savard and composition with
Benjamin Godard. Her one-act comic opera La Sevillane was heard at the Salle Erard in 1884, prompting
composer and music critic Ambroise Thomas to write that she “is not a woman who composes, but a composer who is a woman.”
She made her public debut as a pianist at the age of eighteen and in 1892 gave a command performance
at Windsor Castle for Queen Victoria. Her many concert tours took her all over Europe, Greece, Turkey and,
in the Autumn of 1908 she concertized in the United States and Canada. In 1913, Chaminade became the first
woman composer to be inducted into the French Legion of Honor. During World War I she devoted herself
to benevolent work and by 1922 her compositional activity receded increasingly into the background after she
retired from social life in 1922. When she died in Monte Carlo on April 13, 1944, the musical world remembered her solely for her Concertino for Flute and Orchestra and a handful of piano pieces.
She is best known today for her piano pieces and her many songs, which at one time enjoyed great popularity. Her more ambitious works include a Symphonie lyrique, entitled Les Amazones, for chorus and
orchestra; a ballet, Callirhoë; a comic opera, La Sevillane; two orchestral suites; a Concertstück for piano and
orchestra; the Concertino for Flute and Orchestra; and two trios for piano and strings.
Chaminade left a large and wonderful body of piano works, including one sonata. The bulk of her
piano compositions are miniatures, among which some of the most famous are the character pieces La
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Lisonjera (The Flatterer), Les Sylvains (The Fauns), Arlequine,
Scarf Dance (Air de Ballet, No.3) and Pierrette. Autrefois
(“From Olden Times”) (from Six Pièces humoristiques),
Op.87, No.4 (DISC 1, 4 ) is an “homage” to the French
clavecinistes of the past, Couperin and Rameau.
Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849)
Etymologically, “impromptu” means improvisation. Even if
Chopin was dreaming at the piano over the themes of his
impromptus, he worked them over on paper so well that the four
pieces wed the first rush of inspiration to the perfection of purified writing. If Chopin had called the Impromptu No.2 in F
sharp Major, Opus 36 (DISC 2, 16 ) a nocturne instead of an
impromptu we would not be surprised. This cantilena, marked
andantino, has nothing fleeting about it. Theodor Kullak wrote:
“The dreamy song-like beginning; the immediate contrast with
which the march enters; the fantastic retrogression to the afterwards varied theme; finally, the passage gently gliding away —
with their expressive accompaniment — all these things bear the
impress of an impromptu suggested by scenes from real life.”
Chopin’s fourth and final impromptu, the Fantasie-Impromptu
in C-sharp minor, Opus 66 (DISC 2, 17 ) was composed in
Cherkassky with Frederick R. Huber,
1834 and only published posthumously in 1855. It is one of
Municipal Director of Music for
Chopin’s most memorable compositions because of its intrinsic
Baltimore (March 1923)
beauty and the effective running “commentary” that is kept up
between the two themes. In 1918 the team of Harry Carroll and
Joseph McCarthy used this endearing Chopin melody as the basis for their popular song, I’m Always Chasing
Rainbows, which was featured in the Broadway musical Oh, Look!.
The Fantasie in F minor, Opus 49 (1841) (DISC 2, 18 ) is the greatest of Chopin’s miscellaneous pieces
and one of his most inspired works. The Fantasie begins in march time — not funereal but solemn, distant,
muted — and proceeds to a more assertive motive uttered with the sound of a trumpet playing softly. Then
comes one of those episodes with an air of improvisation that Chopin employs to move swiftly from one state
of mind to another. He soon gets to the life of the subject with a theme of a somber color and its development toward a seductive, exalted phrase: light wins over darkness. Then he begins a noble, chivalric song,
punctuated with “tied” pizzicatos in the left hand. Next, without returning to the music of the introduction,
Chopin extemporizes on the other themes and ends with a meditative, collected, peaceful, and rather short
lento sostenuto. This is a transported reprise of the first episode after the introduction. A fan of modulations
then suddenly snaps closed on a plagal cadence.
The Mazurka is a Polish national dance in three-four time, frequently with a syncopated accent. Chopin
was the first to look upon it as an art form; and when he came out of the East to Paris, via Vienna and Munich,
he startled his listeners with its exotic strains. Chopin composed over fifty of these Mazurkas. They contain, in
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miniature, the essence of his music. None of them is particularly long, and some are tiny sketches, but all are
packed with the color, sentiment and masterly technique that made Chopin one of the greatest of the Romantic
composers. It is here that he expressed his love for his native Poland; it is here that he put all of his ingenuity
and skill. The Mazurkas are far from being direct translations of Polish dances. As Franz Liszt once stated:
“While Chopin preserved the rhythm of the dance, he ennobled its melody and enlarged its proportions... and
as a result coquetries, vanities, fantasies, vague emotions, passions, conquests, struggles upon which the safety
or favors of others depend, all meet in this Chopinesque dance.” The short and beautiful Mazurka No. 23 in
D Major, Op.33, No.3 (DISC 2, 15 ) was composed in 1837-8, and the Mazurka No.46 in C Major, Op.68,
No.1 (DISC 2, 14 ) was composed in 1830 and published posthumously in 1855.
Chopin’s first published composition, in 1817 at the age of eight, was a Polonaise, and in the next five
years he followed that with three more. Altogether there are sixteen Polonaises for piano solo, although the
standard collections usually contain only eleven, of which four are posthumous publications. In addition,
there are the Grande Polonaise, Opus 22 with orchestra accompaniment, to which Chopin added an introductory unaccompanied Andante Spianato, and the Polonaise, Opus 3, for cello and piano. The polonaise is a
Polish processional dance in 3/4 time, and moderate in tempo. Sir George Grove provided the following probable origin of the polonaise: “In 1573, Henry III of Anjou was elected to the Polish throne and in the following year held a great reception at Cracow, at which the wives of the nobles marched in procession, past
the throne, to the sound of stately music. It is said that after this, whenever a foreign prince was elected to
the throne, the same ceremony was repeated, and that out of this custom the polonaise has gradually developed as the opening dance at court festivities.” The Polonaise in A-flat Major, Opus 53 (1842) (DISC 2,
13 ) gives us Chopin in his most majestic and glorious. Legend has it that Chopin, weakened by illness, was
feverishly composing when suddenly he imagined that the walls of his room opened and there came riding in
from the night a cavalcade of armored heroes and the ancient personages of his musical dream. So vivid was
the hallucination that he fled from the room in terror and for several days could not be persuaded to return
and resume work on this magnificent composition. Who knows whether the story is true or not, however, the
music is definitely one of Chopin’s greatest works.
“I have composed a study in my own manner,” wrote Chopin in October 1829, when he was nineteen.
In his “own manner” meant that for the first time he had written an emotional and spontaneous piece of
music under a general classification which offered no clue to its musical content. Between 1829 and 1834,
Chopin composed two sets of études. Opus 10 was dedicated to his friend Franz Liszt; Opus 25, to Countess
Marie d’Agoult, whose daughter, Cosima, later married Richard Wagner. Theodor Kullak calls the Étude in
C-sharp minor, Op.10, No. 4 (DISC 2, 20 ) a “bravura study of velocity and lightness,” while and Étude in
C minor (“Revolutionary”), Op.10, No.12 (DISC 2, 19 ), we are told by Chopin’s contemporaries, was a
direct musical expression of the emotions aroused in the composer on hearing of the taking of Warsaw by the
Russians in 1831. In Moritz Karasowski’s Life of Chopin, we read: “Grief, anxiety, and despair over the fate of
his relatives and his dearly beloved father filled the measure of his sufferings. Under the influence of this mood
he wrote this C minor étude; out of the mad and tempestuous storm of passages for the left hand, the melody
rises aloft, now passionate and anon proudly majestic, until thrills of awe stream over the listener, and the
image is evoked of Zeus hurling thunderbolts at the world.”
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Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)
Mikhail Glinka was the founder of Russian classical music. Summing up, as it were, the achievements
of his predecessors — Russian composers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries — Glinka laid the foundations of the national style of Russian music. Glinka was born on June 1, 1804, in the village of
Novospasskoye in the Smolensk province. He spent his childhood in the family estate amidst the picturesque
nature of central Russia. When Glinka was thirteen his parents took him to St. Petersburg and entered him
at the Boarding School for Children of the Nobility attached to the Chief Pedagogical Institute. At the
Boarding School Glinka showed an aptitude for many subjects, but most of all he was interested in music.
He used to spend hours improvising at the piano. Music became the sole aim of his life and he began taking lessons from the pianist, John Field. By the time of his graduation in 1822 Glinka was already the composer of several original works, including a set of Variations on a theme of Mozart.
In 1830, the young composer made his first trip abroad. He visited cities in Germany and Switzerland
and spent about three years in Italy. He spent countless hours attending operatic performances and studying
Italian bel canto. But he felt out of place in Italy. “I could not sincerely be an Italian,” he wrote in his Memoirs
in 1854. “A longing for my own country led me gradually to the idea of writing in a Russian manner.” In
August of 1832 he left Italy for good, spending some time in Vienna, where he heard the orchestras of Strauss
and Lanner. In October he travelled to Berlin, where for the next five months he occupied himself in the study
of composition techniques under the distinguished teacher Siegfried Dehn. In 1834 the death of his father
prompted Glinka to return to Russia. Back home, the idea of writing a Russian opera gave the composer no
rest. “The main thing is to choose the right subject, so that it will be purely national,” Glinka wrote to his
friends. The poet V.A. Zhukovsky suggested to Glinka that he write an opera on the events of 1612 connected
with the campaign launched by the Polish aristocracy against Russia. The struggle against the Poles had
acquired a national character. The enemy was routed by the Russian volunteer corps headed by Minin and
Pozharsky. One of the most vivid episodes of the struggle was the feat of Ivan Susanin, a Kostroma peasant,
who sacrificed his life in order to save his Motherland from the enemy. This patriot became the central character in Glinka’s opera, A Life for the Tsar. No sooner had A Life for the Tsar been produced than Glinka,
prompted by the playwright Shakhovskoi, fastened upon Ruslan and Lyudmila as the subject of his next opera.
It was produced in 1842.
In 1844, Glinka went abroad again, this time to Spain, a country which had attracted him since childhood. On the way to Spain the composer visited Paris where he met Hector Berlioz. Glinka spent the next
two years in Spain, studying the folk music of Spain and incorporating it in some of his orchestral works,
including the popular Jota aragonesa (also known as the First Spanish Overture). Russian melodies with
their simplicity and sincerity, however, still occupied the main place in Glinka’s creative work. He had
long wishes to create a work that would integrate Russian folk tunes of different styles. The result was his
tone poem, Kamarinskaya (1848). During the last years of his life Glinka travelled a great deal and often
visited St. Petersburg for long stays. Talented younger composers would flock to his flat on the corner of
Nevsky and Vladimirsky Prospekts. Dargomyzhsky, Serov and Balakirev came to show their work to their
elder friend and teacher. Glinka’s health began to deteriorate rapidly and his doctor’s suggested a change
of climate. In May of 1856 Glinka left for Berlin. The trip proved fatal, and on February 15, 1857,
Mikhail Glinka died of a cold. Several months later the body of the great Russian composer was brought
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to St. Petersburg and buried in the cemetery of the Alexander
Nevsky Monastery.
During his short life, Glinka composed eight works for the
stage, eleven orchestral works, some chamber music, numerous
songs, and many short piano pieces. Among his piano compositions is the Tarantella in A minor (1843) (DISC 1, 5 ) which is
based on the Russian song “Vo pole beryoza stoyala” (In the field
there stood a Birch tree).
Morton Gould (1913-1996)
Morton Gould was a phenomenally talented composer,
pianist, conductor, arranger and orchestrator. A prodigy who grew
up writing music on his family’s kitchen table in New York, he
eventually became one of the most influential and prolific
American composers, writing in a wide variety of musical forms —
from ballet to Broadway, classical orchestra works to film and television scores. The legacy he left has yet to be fully appreciated.
Gould was born in Richmond Hill, Long Island, New York,
on December 10, 1913. At the age of 4 he was playing the piano
and composing; at 6 he had his first composition — a waltz called
Mrs. Eugenie Blanc Cherkassky
Just Six — published, and performed at The Academy of Music in
(January 1948)
Brooklyn. By the time he was 8 he was playing on New York radio
station WOR broadcasts. Also, at eight, he auditioned for the
renowned Frank Damrosch, then director of the Institute of Musical Arts, forerunner of The Juilliard School.
Damrosch awarded the boy a scholarship. Subsequently he took piano lessons from Abby Whiteside and also
studied composition and theory with Dr. Vincent Jones of New York University.
Following the completion of his music studies, Gould earned his living in theater, vaudeville, and radio
as solo pianist and member of a two-piano team. At 18 he became a staff musician at Radio City Music Hall
and a year later he accepted a position with the National Broadcasting Company. Working seven days a week,
he played piano, electric piano, or celesta depending on what was needed for the condensed versions of operas,
the precision of the Rockettes, the juggling acts, the ballet, or anything else that might have been happening
on stage. In 1934, at the age of 21, Gould began a long and fruitful association with radio as conductor of
an orchestra for the WOR Mutual network. Radio provided both an outlet for his talents and a national
showcase for his orchestral settings of popular music as well as many of his early original works. He quickly
became a radio and recording favorite. The ability to bring the structural dimensions and technical resources
of serious music to American popular idioms became Morton Gould’s compositional calling card. Stokowski
became the first of countless famous conductors who championed Gould’s music. Others included Toscanini,
Solti, Dorati, Wallenstein, Maazel, Fiedler, Monteux, Reiner, Golschmann, Comissiona, Mitropoulos,
Ormandy, Iturbi, and Rodzinski!
The 1940s proved to be even more productive for Gould. During this period he composed three of his
four symphonies, the very popular Latin-American Symphonette (1941), Spirituals for Orchestra (1941), the
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Cowboy Rhapsody (1942), Interplay for Piano and Orchestra (originally titled “American Concertette”) (1943),
Viola Concerto (1943), Fall River Legend (1947), Philharmonic Waltzes (1948), Minstrel Show (1946), and
Holiday Music (1947). His brilliant orchestral adaptation of the famous American popular song by Patrick
Gilmore, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” also became Gould’s most popular and mostperformed work, American Salute.
“Composing is my life blood,” said Morton Gould. “That is basically me, and although I have done many
things in my life — conducting, playing piano, and so on — what is fundamental is my being a composer.”
His music was commissioned by symphony orchestras throughout the United States, the Library of Congress,
the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the American Ballet Theatre, and the New York City Ballet.
Gould integrated jazz, blues, gospel, and folk elements into his compositions, which bear his unequaled mastery of orchestration and imaginative formal structures. He passed away on 21 February 1996 while serving
as artist-in-residence at the newly established Disney Institute in Orlando, Florida. Gould was one of the most
vital advocates of American music, a great musical communicator who, with enormous mastery and élan, was
able to achieve a synthesis between concert and popular music.
Morton Gould’s Prelude and Toccata (DISC 2, 11 ) was composed in 1945 for José Iturbi, shortly after
he composed and dedicated to Iturbi the Boogie Woogie Étude (1943) (DISC 2, 12 ). According to Gould:
“I wrote Prelude and Toccata in the period when I was doing much broadcasting and guest conducting, and
when I was composing a lot. I was writing music for the pianist José Iturbi during this period; for example
Interplay was originally written under the title American Concertette for Iturbi. After writing the short Boogie
Woogie Étude for Iturbi, it occurred to me to write a longer piece in a more extended form. This work became
the Prelude and Toccata. The Toccata is, in a sense, a perpetual motion on a continual ostinato, a stylized boogie as it were — almost a minimalist piece. It stems from a period when I was utilizing popular and jazz vernacular in my concert music.”
Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978)
Aram Khachaturian is Armenia’s greatest composer. Ethnically, the land known as Armenia includes
northeastern Turkey and a sizeable chunk of Iran in addition to the nation of Kazakhstan that became, in
1922, a member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This entire region lays claim to one of the
world’s oldest musical traditions. Her bards — the ashugs — were renowned even in the fifth century. To
this day it remains essentially monodic, with only the sparest rhythmic accompaniment encumbering its
flights of fancy. Crossroads of this milieu meet at Tiflis, between the Black and the Caspian seas. It was here
that Aram Khachaturian was born on June 6, 1903. Though he showed an early interest in music, and particularly the folk songs and dances of his native land, it was not until later in life that he was able to receive
adequate musical training. His father, a bookbinder, was too poor to pay for a musical education. Up until
his twentieth year Khachaturian knew almost nothing about theory or the musical repertory. Khachaturian
came to Moscow in the autumn of 1921. The city, as well as the whole country, was going through a grim
period of economic dislocation. People had not enough to eat, houses were unheated, and more often than
not the audiences kept their coats on in theaters and concert halls. Despite this, Moscow’s theaters were
seething with activity. Khachaturian’s move to Moscow interrupted his studies at the Tbilisi Commercial
School. He took a preparatory course at Moscow University, finished it in 1922, and in that same year was
admitted to the Physics and Mathematics program at the University where he studied for almost three years.
– 12 –
His friends kept urging him to apply himself more seriously to
music and in the autumn of 1922 he decided to attend the
Gnesin Music School. There he studied cello and performed
in ensembles and in student concerts. Khachaturian graduated
from the Gnesin School of Music in 1929 and, on the advice
of Mikhail Gnesin, began to prepare for his entrance examinations at the Moscow Conservatory. He was admitted to the
Conservatory in the autumn of 1929, and in 1930 began studies with Nikolai Miaskovsky. Miaskovsky watched the creative
searchings of his new pupil with sympathy and interest. He
believed in Khachaturian’s talent from the start and, treating
his creative personality with singular tact, guided the young
musician solicitously along the path of great art. He taught
Khachaturian more than just the intricacies of composition.
He fostered as well in his pupil a better understanding of literature, painting, and architecture. While in Miaskovsky’s
class Khachaturian composed a sonata for violin and piano, a
trio for piano, violin and clarinet, a dance suite for orchestra,
two marches for brass band, and numerous arrangements of
Armenian, Turkmenian, Tatar and Russian folk songs. It was
in this class too that Khachaturian wrote his First Symphony,
his diploma work for graduation. Other major works followed
Cherkassky (1924)
which extended and magnified Khachaturian’s importance as
a composer. The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, introduced
by the composer in Moscow in 1937, became instantly popular in the Soviet Union. To this day it is one
of Khachaturian’s most famous and frequently heard large works. The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, in
1940, the ballet Gayaneh, in 1942, both won the much-coveted Stalin Prize. The two orchestral suites
which the composer prepared from Gayaneh have enjoyed considerable popularity. One of the numbers
from the Suite No. 1 has been particularly successful — the “Sabre Dance.” The first time the Suite No.1
was played in New York, the “Sabre Dance” aroused such a demonstration that it had to be repeated. It was
largely through the appeal of this one dance that the Columbia recording of the first suite became (according to Billboard) the best-selling classical album soon after its release in the United States in 1947. “Sabre
Dance” became a juke-box favorite and for many months assumed the status of a nation-wide popular
“hit.” In 1943 Khachaturian composed his Second Symphony, which was followed in 1944 by the
Masquerade Suite, in 1946 by the Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, and in 1947 by his Third Symphony.
When he was in Rome on a concert tour in 1950, he began thinking about a ballet about Spartacus, the
heroic leader of the insurgent gladiators. He was deeply impressed by the historical memorials he saw —
those mute witnesses to the tragic events of the remote past. Again and again he returned to the majestic
ruins of the Colosseum and the arena where the gory games of the gladiators were once held. These impressions, Khachaturian said, were very helpful to him when he was composing the music for the ballet Spartacus
in Moscow, drawing mental pictures of life in ancient Rome and the struggle of the insurgent slaves led by
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Spartacus. Soviet audiences heard the Spartacus symphonic suite long before the ballet had its premiere at the
Kirov Theater in Leningrad on December 27, 1956. The suite comprises separate dances from the ballet and
extensive symphonic fragments, including the world famous Adagio. In the spring of 1959 Aram
Khachaturian was awarded the Lenin Prize for his Spartacus. In the 1960s, Khachaturian composed a trio of
Concert-Rhapsodies, for violin, cello and piano, and in the 1970s a trio of solo string sonatas, for violin, viola
and cello. Throughout his life he composed some twenty-five film scores and several albums of children’s
piano music. His wife, Nina Makarova (1908-1976) was also a composer. Aram Khachaturian died in
Moscow on May 1, 1978.
Khachaturian composed only seven concert works for solo piano, along with two suites of children’s
music and one suite for two-pianos, four hands. The Toccata (1932) (DISC 2, 1 ) is the best known of his
piano works. It contains folk-inspired elements, and a central section with echoes of Granados’ La Maja y el
Ruiseñor, surrounded by motoric piano athleticism.
Anatoly Liadov (1855-1914)
Anatoly Liadov was born in St. Petersburg into a musical family. His father and grandfather were professional musicians. Liadov’s first lessons were from his father, followed, in 1870, by admission to the St.
Petersburg Conservatory, where he initially studied piano and violin. Additionally, he studied counterpoint,
and entered the composition class of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Liadov eventually joined the faculty of the
Conservatory, teaching harmony, theory and composition. During the 1870s he collaborated with Borodin,
Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov and Shcherbachov on a light-hearted set of variations dedicated to Liszt. By the 1880s
he was closely linked to the Russian nationalist movement headed by Mili Balakirev. Liadov’s orchestral works
show incredible imagination and resplendent musical coloring. Works such as The Enchanted Lake, Op.62,
Kikimora, Op.63, and Baba-Yaga, Op.56 firmly place Liadov among the most colorful of Russian symphonists. Along with his colleagues, Balakirev and Lyapunov, Liadov collected and documented the folk-songs of
various districts and peoples of Russia.
As a piano composer, Liadov was primarily a miniaturist, producing countless beautiful preludes, mazurkas,
bagatelles, and études. His most popular and most-recorded piano piece is his Music Box in A Major, Opus 32
(DISC 2, 4 ) which he composed in 1893, and subtitled “valse-shutka” (waltz-jest). This delightful tonepicture preserves the tinkling ethereal sounds we are accustomed to associating with a toy music-box.
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Liszt conceived the Hungarian Rhapsodies, as a kind of collective national epic. He composed the first in
1846 at the age of 35, and his last in 1885 at the age of 74. Most of his Hungarian Rhapsodies are in the
sectional slow-fast form of the Gypsy dance known as the czardas. The Hungarian Rhapsodies remain popular
today after almost one hundred and fifty years. However, if we were to follow their history we would find in
them the same contradictions in origin and purpose, the same contrast between serious musicianship and virtuoso exhibitionism which made Liszt himself so fascinating. There is no doubt that Liszt was devoted to his
country, but he was a Hungarian more by enthusiasm than through upbringing or ethnic heritage. He could
barely speak the language, for Hungarian was third to German and French at home. He left his native
province at the age of nine for the more cosmopolitan cities of Vienna and Paris. When he returned some
two decades later he was an international hero in need of a national identity. This identity was achieved
– 14 –
through the special musical language of the Hungarian
Rhapsodies.
In order to collect Gypsy tunes and absorb the strong flavor of their rhythms — the slow pride of the Lassan and the
dervish rampage of the Friska — Liszt lived in Gypsy encampments. His first fifteen Hungarian Rhapsodies were published
by 1854 (the remaining five were to come in his last years).
Liszt also wrote and had printed, in German and Hungarian,
a long book entitled The Gypsies and their Music in Hungary.
As scholars have discovered later, Liszt was entirely wrong
about the Gypsy origins of Hungarian music. Half a century
later Bela Bartók and Zoltan Kodály, after diligently collecting
thousands of unadorned Magyar folk tunes, showed that the
Gypsy contribution was a style of playing, a process of inflection and instrumental arrangement rather than anything original in form. However, Hungarian Gypsy music, as it is now
called, was the glory of the nation and Franz Liszt’s compositions spread its fame to the ends of the earth. Although Liszt’s
efforts were not a particularly worthy study in ethnomusicology, his free-ranging fantasies (and the use in the title of the
word “rhapsody”) were strokes of genius. In the Hungarian
Rhapsodies, Liszt did much more than use the so-called
Cherkassky with Joseph Hoffmann
czardas. He miraculously recreated on the piano the character(circa 1920s)
istics of a Gypsy band, with its string choirs, the sentimentally placed solo violin and the compellingly soft, percussive
effect of the cimbalom, a kind of dulcimer.
Hungarian Rhapsody No.5 in E minor (DISC 1, 12 ) (Published 1853; dedicated to Countess
Szidónia Reviczky). According to musicologists, this rhapsody is a free arrangement of a Hungarian dance
by József Kossovits (who was active around 1800). Heard by itself, this “Heroic” Elegy (Heroïde-Elégiaque
is the printed subtitle) does not remind us of any of the other rhapsodies, in either style or feeling. Themes
suggesting Chopin’s funeral march (trio) and the “Revolutionary” Étude make one wonder whether the
subject of this elegy was actually Liszt’s beloved friend, who died in 1849.
Hungarian Rhapsody No.6 in D flat Major (DISC 1, 13 ) (Published 1853; dedicated to Count Antal
Apponyi). This rhapsody is a masterful arrangement of four Hungarian songs popular in Liszt’s time and
opens with a march-like Tempo giusto in D flat and proceeds through a short and sprightly Presto to brilliant
octave development. The Lassan which is its principal endearment is especially doleful. The text which goes
with it in Gypsy lore translates roughly as follows: “My father is dead, my mother is dead, and I have no
brothers and sisters, and all the money that I have left will just buy a rope to hang myself with.” Once again,
a number of these themes appeared also in Liszt’s series of the Magyar Dallok.
Hungarian Rhapsody No.11 in A minor (DISC 1, 14 ) (Published 1853; dedicated to Baron Ferenc
Orczy). The cimbalom figurations yield a new play of sonorities in this surprisingly short rhapsody. Here
– 15 –
Liszt chooses intimacy rather than dazzle. Suggestions of stringed instruments can be heard in the Vivace assai.
Hungarian Rhapsody No.15 in A minor (“Rákóczi March”) (Second Version; Published 1871) (DISC
1, 15 ). This work is somewhat dubiously classified as a Hungarian Rhapsody. It is in actuality better known
as the “Rákóczy March.” This same Rákóczy March was orchestrated by Berlioz and incorporated by him into
his Damnation of Faust. The actual march was originally written by an obscure musician named Michael
Barna, in honor of Prince Francis Rákóczy, the historic hero of Hungarian nationalism and fiery nobleman
who led the revolt against Austria in the early 1700s. It has long since become the national march of Hungary
and a symbol of freedom and national pride.
The three Liebesträume, are impassioned love songs without words. Yet, they began their existence as
songs with words. Liszt published them in 1850 with the title Drei Lieder für eine Tenor – oder Sopranstimme.
The first two songs were settings of poems by Ludwig Uhland (1787-1862) and the third, to a poem by
Ferdinand Freiligrath (1810-1876). Liszt provides the complete texts of the Uhland poems and the first four
verses of the Freiligrath’s poem before the piano pieces. Liszt called his Liebesträume nocturnes (“Notturni” ),
music full of warm evening colors.
Liebesträum No.3 in A Flat Major (Disc 1, 10 ) is the most celebrated of the three works. It is a
setting of Freiligrath’s romantic poem O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst! (“O love, as long as you can love”):
O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst!
O lieb, so lang du lieben magst!
Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt,
Wo du an Gräbern stehst und klagst
Oh love, as long as you can love!
Oh love, as long as you may love!
The hour will come, the hour will come
When you stand by their graves and mourn.
Und sorge, daß dein Herze glüht
Und Liebe hegt und Liebe trägt,
So lang ihm noch ein ander Herz
In Liebe warm entgegen schlägt.
Be sure that your heart with ardour glows,
Is full of love and cherishes love,
As long as one other heart
Beats with yours in tender love.
Und wer dir seine Brust erschließt,
O tu ihm, was du kannst, zu lieb!
Und mach ihm jede Stunde froh,
Und mach ihm keine Stunde trüb.
If anyone opens his heart to you,
Show him kindness whenever you can!
And make his every hour happy
And never give him one hour of sadness.
Und hüte deine Zunge wohl!
Bald ist ein hartes Wort entflohn.
O gott, es war nicht bös gemeint;
Fer Andre aber geht und weint.
And guard well your tongue!
A cruel word is quickly said.
Oh God, it was not meant to hurt;
But the other one departs in grief.
Twice in the course of this impassioned work the melody is interrupted by a brief interlude between the
verses, as it would seem, giving us a fleeting glimpse of the summer night with its subtle perfumes and vague
whisperings. The work closes with a passage of soft, sweet, restful harmonies, a sigh of content in the final
– 16 –
fruition of love’s dream.
The Concert Étude No.2 Gnomenreigen (“Dance of
the Gnomes”) (S145/R6) (1862/3) (DISC 1, 11 ) is a sinister rondo demanding the utmost virtuosity. Liszt’s gnomes,
cavorting by moonlight, are obviously inspired by demonic
forces. Although Liszt marks one section of the piece giocoso
(“joyous”), this is not humans laughing but rather monsters
cackling. Throughout the piece there is supernatural malice
in the air and an atmosphere of alarm. At the end, the creatures scurry across the keyboard and away, giving us a sense of
relief that they are doing their dastardly deeds elsewhere!
Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951)
Nikolai Medtner was an important Russian pianist. He
entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1892. There he studied
with Paul Pabst, Vassily Safonov, Vassily Sapel’nikov, Anton
Arensky and Sergei Taneyev. Following graduation in 1900
with a gold medal, he entered the Anton Rubinstein Piano
Competition in Vienna, and won still another trophy. With
this brilliant record to his credit, he had no trouble securing
engagements as a pianist, touring Russia and Germany as a
Cherkassky (early 1930s)
virtuoso. In 1906-08 and 1914-21 he was a professor at the
Moscow Conservatory. The political turmoil in Russia was
too much to bear, and Medtner (along with Rachmaninov and other musical colleagues) emigrated, first settling in Germany. He lived in France (1925-35) and eventually moved to England where he lived the
remaining years of his life. In 1946, made possible by the financial support of Jaya Chamarajenda, the
Maharajah of Mysore, the Medtner Society was formed. Medtner recorded a number of his songs, piano
pieces and the three piano concertos, before passing away in 1951.
Medtner has been described as a neo-classicist, whose reverence for formal purity was “unparalleled in
contemporary music.” According to Oskar von Riesemann, “Medtner’s real originality lies in his handling
of rhythm. In this respect he has command of such fertility of combinations and demonstrates such infinitely varied possibilities and inventions, as to give him a place apart in the literature of modern music.” All
of his compositions are noble, passionate, lyrical and rich in imagination. He developed new musical forms
— short stories, improvisations, fairy tales and dithyrambs. The textures are complex, with an abundance of
counterpoint, cross-rhythms and unusual metrical groupings. The Fairy Tale (“Skazka”) in E minor,
Opus 34, No.2 (DISC 2, 2 ) has as its epigraph a verse from a Tyutchev poem which Medtner also set as
his last song, Opus 61, No.8: “We lost all that was once our own.” According to biographer Barrie Martyn,
“Here a river, like life, sweeps relentlessly onwards. From the very first bar the rippling left-hand triplet
accompaniment to the very Russian melody runs in ceaseless undulation throughout the entire piece, the
flow interrupted only momentarily by two brief cadences and eventually lost from view in the very last bar.”
– 17 –
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
The brilliant French composer, Francis Poulenc was born on 7th January, 1899 in Paris into a wealthy
family of pharmaceutical manufacturers. He once wrote: “During my childhood I had only one passion —
to play the piano. When I was two years old my parents gave me a child’s piano...” Poulenc’s mother was his
first teacher and by 1915 Francis decided to seriously study the piano and began lessons with the eccentric
virtuoso, and family friend, Ricardo Viñes. It was Viñes who, about a year later, introduced Francis to the
remarkable Erik Satie, and it was through Viñes that he came into contact with a composer of his own age,
George Auric, who became his lifelong friend. Francis Poulenc quickly became an excellent pianist, a virtuoso with a highly personal technique. He often performed, chiefly his own compositions, both as soloist and
accompanist.
Poulenc’s earliest piano compositions date from 1917. After World War I, Poulenc returned to the study
of music, although he remained in the French army until after the Armistice. He became a pupil of Charles
Koechlin. Koechlin was an excellent teacher, who advised his pupils to avoid the exaggerations of romanticism without sacrificing depth of feeling. In 1919 the concert audiences heard his three Mouvements Perpetuels
and Poulenc became a household name almost overnight. Around 1920 the critic Henri Collet grouped
together Auric and Poulenc, plus Milhaud, Honegger, Durey and Tailleferre, as Les Six (“The French Six”).
By 1926 Milhaud, Honegger and Poulenc were winning recognition for their individual activities, and Les Six
eventually passed into history.
The next several decades were fruitful for Poulenc, who created many of his finest works, including the
Concert Champêtre, a Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, the Mass in G Major, songs, chamber music
and, of course, more piano pieces. During World War II, Poulenc was an active member of the French
Resistance movement. Works from these years include the poignant Violin Sonata dedicated to the memory
of Federico Garcia Lorca and the deeply moving, tragic choral work, Figure Humaine, for unaccompanied
double chorus, based on a poem of Paul Éluard. In 1947 his opera-burlesque, Les Mamelles de Tirésias, was
performed at the Opéra Comique. The audiences were both shocked and delighted by the intriguing tonguein-cheek score and the strange libretto by Claude Rostand, where a character changes his sex and another who
gives birth to 40,000 babies! In 1957 he produced the opera Les Dialogues des Carmelites, which received its
American premiere at the San Francisco Opera on 22nd September, 1957. In 1959 he produced La Voix
Humaine, and in 1961 the six-part Gloria for chorus and orchestra. Francis Poulenc died suddenly at his home
in Paris on 30th January, 1963.
The Trois Pièces from 1928 were dedicated to Ricardo Viñes. Originally this opus was conceived as a set
of three pastorales, composed in 1918. Poulenc retained the first Pastorale and combined it with two newlycomposed movements. One of the two new pieces, the Toccata (DISC 1, 3 ) is a bravura piece involving
crossed hands, broken chord figures and oscillating melodies.
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Not many contemporary composers write music with such an unmistakable identity as that of Prokofiev.
The mocking reeds, the mischievous leaps in the melody, the tart and often disjointed harmonies, the sudden
fluctuation from the naive and the simple to the unexpected and the complex — these are but a few of the
fingerprints that mark Prokofiev’s works.
Born in 1891, he began studying music early with his mother, Reinhold Gliere and Sergei Taneyev. At
– 18 –
five he wrote his first piano pieces, and at eight a complete
opera. In 1903 he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory
where he studied with Liadov, Rimsky-Korsakov and
Tcherepnin, graduating with the highest honors seven years
later. In the spring of 1918, Prokofiev left the Soviet Union to
circle the world. It is said that when he applied for his visa, the
People’s Commissar of Education said to him: “You are a revolutionary in music just as we are a revolutionary in life, and
we ought to work together. But if you want to go, we will not
stand in your way.” By way of Siberia, Japan, and Honolulu,
Prokofiev came to the United States, arriving in August, 1918.
He appeared as a pianist and as a composer. While in this
country, he received a commission from the Chicago Opera
Company to write an opera — The Love for Three Oranges. In
1923 Prokofiev began a ten-year residence in Paris. During
this period he established his world reputation as one of the
most powerful, original, and provocative composers of our
time. In 1932 he returned to the Soviet Union. During the
remaining 21 years of his life he composed some of his best
known music to the film Alexander Nevsky, the opera War and
Peace, his Symphony No.5, Opus 100, and the symphonic
fairy tale Peter and the Wolf.
Photo of Cherkassky (circa 1941)
As a pianist, Prokofiev concertized all over the world. He
dedicated to Joseph Hoffman
recorded his Third Piano Concerto and many of his shorter
piano pieces. Prokofiev was a pianist of impressive accomplishment and his mastery of the instrument, and close familiarity with its resources shows unmistakably in
his wonderfully idiomatic music for the piano. In spite of this, however, he is not, in the strict sense of the
term, an innovator of keyboard style and technique. He did not seem interested in exploration, so his piano
music contributed little that was new to the vocabulary of the instrument, little that exploited hidden or
neglected resources of keyboard color, tone, and effect. Instead, he utilized the piano as a sort of testing and
proving ground for purely musical ideas. As an instrument of harmony and tonal blending, it provided him
with the ideal medium through which to develop a personal art. In his piano music, we find what might be
termed the “essential Prokofiev” — the essence of his musical thought, his basic musical vocabulary. There is
a deep intimacy of utterance in most of the piano works. The characteristic qualities we find in the larger
orchestral works — epic folklorism, eccentric whimsy, delicate melodicism — are all found expressed in close
similarity of feeling and effect in them. Some of Prokofiev’s finest music is to be found here and especially in
the nine sonatas, a series of works which traces quite clearly his growth as a composer and the various stylistic changes which occurred during his career.
Prokofiev’s Four Pieces, Opus 4, is a startling set. Composed in 1908 and revised in 1910-12, it is indeed
a set, for it traverses the emotional spectrum: evocation (Reminiscences), exaltation (Ardor), desperation
(Despair), and inspiration (Temptation). The fourth and last piece, also known as Suggestion Diabolique
– 19 –
(DISC 2, 3 ) is a frightening, berserk explosion, the quintessence of shock and fury, frenetic anger, the conclusion and resolution to the ostinato of dejection that precedes it. The universe expands, then implodes, and
Prokofiev gives us his interpretation of the “Big Bang”.
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
Rachmaninov is, after Tchaikovsky, the most performed and the most recorded of all Russian composers.
His second and third piano concerti and his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for piano and orchestra are standard repertoire of concert pianists throughout the world and among the most popular classical show pieces
ever created.
Rachmaninov was, after Liszt, the greatest pianistic genius. His extraordinary aptitude at the keyboard was
evidenced at a very early age. The music world should be grateful that Alexander Siloti auditioned
Rachmaninov when he was a boy with a propensity to play hooky and go ice skating instead of attending his
music lessons in St. Petersburg. On Siloti’s recommendation, the young Sergei was transferred to Moscow,
where a skeptical music faculty gave the lad a formidable first assignment with a two-week deadline: Johannes
Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Handel. This homework, however, was not challenging enough, because in
merely two days the tall teenager played the entire composition perfectly from memory to everyone’s amazement. And in 1892, the nineteen-year-old Rachmaninov graduated from the Moscow Conservatory with the
Great Gold Medal, an honor bestowed only twice before in the Conservatory’s thirty year history. Alexander
Scriabin, graduating the same year as Rachmaninov, was awarded only the Small Gold Medal. Another prominent pianist and composer, Nikolai Medtner, received the Great Gold Medal in 1900.
The short piano piece Polka de W.R. (DISC 1, 2 ) was composed on March 11, 1911 on a theme by Sergei
Rachmaninov’s father, Vasili. When it was published a few months later, the composer dedicated the work to
Leopold Godowsky. Although most scores still list the title with a “w”, it should be called “Polka de V.R.”
Vladimir Rebikov (1866-1920)
Vladimir Ivanovich Rebikov was a Russian miniaturist. Many of his short piano pieces have been likened
to those of Grieg, and the more experimental pieces of later years gave him the title of Russian’s finest impressionist. He wrote eleven stage works, liturgical music, numerous short piano pieces (many very experimental
and far reaching), and “mélomimiques” for voice and piano. His most adventurous and celebrated pieces are
his stage works called “musico-psychological dramas”, such as The Woman with the Dagger (1911), Narcissus
(1913) and The Gentry’s Nest, Opus 55. His best known work is a fairy play, after Dostoyevsky, Andersen and
Hauptmann, called Yolka (The Christmas Tree), Opus 21 which was produced in Moscow in 1903. The
endearing little Waltz (DISC 2, 10 ) from this work is the stuff of Russian childhood memories.
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
When in 1881 Saint-Saëns was elected to the Institut de France someone said, “If it were necessary to
characterize Saint-Saëns in a few words we should call him the best musician in France.” He was a man of
extraordinary, and seemingly inexhaustible, energy and drive. He was an expert organist and pianist, teacher
and founder of the Société Nationale de Musique. He edited the music of other composers, including a comprehensive edition of Rameau’s works, and wrote theoretical treatises on harmony and melody. Beyond all
this he was an amateur astronomer, physicist, archaeologist, and natural historian. He painted, enjoyed
– 20 –
learning new languages, was an omnivorous reader of the classics,
and did creative writing. In short, Saint-Saëns was a man of
immense culture.
He was described by Georges Servières as “of short stature. His
head was extremely original and the features characteristic: a great
brow, wide and open where, between the eyebrows, the tenacity of
the man reveals itself: hair habitually cut short, and brownish
beard turning grey; a nose like an eagle’s beak, underlined by two
deeply marked wrinkles starting from the nostrils; eyes a little
prominent, very mobile, very expressive.”
Saint-Saëns was a master craftsman who had an unerring
musical sense and an astonishing ability to produce masterpiece
after masterpiece. He left an astonishing volume of work including
thirteen operas (of which Samson et Dalila is considered one of the
greatest works of the French lyric stage), ten concertos (including
the delightful Carnival of the Animals for two pianos and orchestra), seven symphonies, numerous choral works, over a hundred
songs, symphonic poems, piano compositions and chamber
Cherkassky (January 14, 1946)
sonatas for violin, cello, clarinet, oboe and bassoon. He also wrote
works for military band, cadenzas to piano concertos of Mozart
and Beethoven, and transcribed and arranged numerous works by Bach, Gluck, Schumann, Mendelssohn,
Berlioz, Mozart and others. “Of all composers, Saint-Saëns is most difficult to describe,” wrote Arthur Hervey.
“He eludes you at every moment — the elements constituting his musical personality are so varied in their
nature, yet they seem to blend in so remarkable a fashion... Saint-Saëns is a typical Frenchman... He is preeminently witty... It is this quality which has enabled him to attack the driest forms of art and render them
bearable. There is nothing ponderous about him.” The Prelude and Fugue in F minor, Op.90, No.1 (DISC
1, 1 ) is the opening piece of his Suite in F for piano, composed in 1891.
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Alexander Scriabin was a musical visionary, a genius, and an individualist with a strong, artistic voice. He
was born in Moscow on 6 January, 1872, the son of an accomplished pianist. He began music studies early,
entering the Moscow Conservatory in 1888. There he studied with Vasily Safonov, Sergei Taneyev and Anton
Arensky (also Sergei Rachmaninov’s teacher). In 1892 the Moscow Conservatory awarded Scriabin their highest honor, a gold Medal (in piano playing). During this period he began composing exquisite piano miniatures which revealed such talent that they attracted the attention of the foremost publisher in Russia —
Belaieff, who sponsored the young musician, gave him a handsome contract for his compositions, and subsidized a tour for him as piano virtuoso in programs of his own works.
From 1898 to 1903, Scriabin taught piano at the Moscow Conservatory. But teaching proved a painful
chore to him, and he abandoned it for composition and piano recitals. In 1906 he toured the United States
with great success. During this time period his compositions were undergoing a radical metamorphosis,
largely due to his increasing interest in mysticism and philosophy. In his Third Symphony, written in 1903,
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Cherkassky with actress Barbara
Britton, rehearsing for their concert
on May 26, 1949, at the Wilshire
Ebell Theater in Los Angeles.
subtitled The Divine Poem, he portrayed man’s escape from the
shackles of religion and of his own past in ecstatic and triumphant music. His last two completed orchestral works were
called Poem of Ecstasy, music which he said depicted the “ecstasy
of unfettered action,” and Prometheus: The Poem of Fire. “For my
part,” he once stated, “I prefer Prometheus or Satan, the prototype of revolt and individuality. Here I am my own master. I
want truth, not salvation.” And in Prometheus: The Poem of Fire
he described the omnipotence of the “creative will.” Scriabin
died in Moscow on 27 April, 1915.
During his short life of 43 years, Scriabin wrote three
symphonies, two symphonic poems, variations for string quartet,
a romance for French horn, a romance for voice, one piano concerto, and more than two hundred piano compositions. The
Prelude for the Left Hand Alone in C-sharp minor, Op. 9,
No.1 (DISC 2, 8 ) was conceived in the summer of 1891, when
Scriabin spent a great deal of time practising, among other works,
Liszt’s Don Juan Fantasy and Balakirev’s Islamey. Scriabin’s
overzealous practising strained his right hand seriously, resulting
in neuralgia. This caused the composer much anguish and for a
time he feared having to give up permanently his career as pianist.
The richly romantic piece for the left hand (along with its companion piece, the Nocturne) which Scriabin composed in 1894,
shows influences of his twin musical references of that period in
his life, Chopin and Liszt. Biographer Faubion Bowers calls the
works “original, ostentatious and luscious.”
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Dmitri Shostakovich was born on September 25, 1906, in a house on the quiet Podolskaya Street in
St. Petersburg, not far from the Institute of Technology. His parents came from Siberia and were both musical. His mother had played the piano from childhood and almost all her life had been a music teacher. The
father was a dilettante in music; he was very fond of singing, especially the Gypsy songs that were popular
in those days. On the occasion of his 50th birthday, Shostakovich provided the following autobiographical note: “I grew up in a musical family. My mother, Sophia Vasilyevna, studied for some years at the
Conservatory and was a good pianist. My father, Dmitri Boleslavovich, was a great lover of music and sang
well. There were many music-lovers among the friends and acquaintances of the family, all of whom took
part in our musical evenings. I also remember the strains of music that came from a neighboring apartment
where there lived an engineer who was an excellent cellist and was passionately fond of chamber music.
With a group of his friends he often played quartets and trios by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Borodin
and Tchaikovsky. I used to go out into the corridor and sit there for hours, the better to hear the music.
In our apartment too, we held amateur musical evenings. All this impressed itself on my musical
– 22 –
memory and played a certain part in my future work as a composer.”
Shostakovich was educated at Shidlovskaya’s Commercial School where he did well although he had some
trouble with geography and history. At ten years of age he entered Glyaser’s School of Music in Petrograd. He
studied there from 1916 to 1918, and in 1919 passed his entrance examination to the Petrograd
Conservatory. There he studied with Leonid Nikolayev, becoming a world-class pianist. In a review published
in 1923, the critic wrote: “A tremendous impression was created by the concert given by Dmitri Shostakovich,
the young composer and pianist. He played Bach’s Organ Prelude and Fugue in A Minor in a transcription by
Franz Liszt and Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata, along with several of his own piano compositions.
Shostakovich played with a confidence and an artistic endeavor of great fluency that revealed in him a musician who has a profound feeling for the understanding of his art.” Shostakovich was only 17 years old at the
time!
Shostakovich finished his course of piano studies at the Conservatory in 1923. Four years later he took part
in the First International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, where he was awarded a Certificate of Merit. But
afterwards he decided to abandon the career of concert pianist. This is what he said about it: “After finishing
the Conservatory I was confronted with the problem — should I become a pianist or a composer? The latter
won. If the truth be told I should have been both, but it’s too late now to blame myself for making such a ruthless decision.” Shostakovich’s last concert as piano soloist was given in Rostov-on-Don in 1930. He rarely
appeared on concert stages after that and only on occasions when he would perform his own compositions.
Although he began composing at the age of ten, he did not seriously apply himself to composition until
entering the Conservatory. There he enjoyed the fatherly patronage of Alexander Glazunov and studied vociferously under Maximilian Steinberg, a disciple and student of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Shostakovich’s first
work that had crossed the dividing line between boyhood and manhood was the Scherzo in F sharp minor for
orchestra which was published as his Opus 1 in 1919. What followed were Eight Preludes for Piano, Opus 2,
Theme and Variations for Orchestra, Opus 3, Two Fables for Mezzo-Soprano and Orchestra, Opus 4, Three
Fantastic Dances for Piano, Opus 5, a Suite for Two Pianos, Opus 6, another Scherzo for Orchestra, Opus 7, his
First Piano Trio, Opus 8, Three Pieces for Cello and Piano, Opus 9, and the Symphony No.1 in F minor, Opus
10.
Shostakovich became an overnight sensation on May 12, 1926, when the Leningrad Philharmonic under
Nikolai Malko gave the first performance of his First Symphony. The score was his graduation work,
presented in December 1925 on completion of his composition studies with Maximilian Steinberg. The
19-year-old composer’s work was soon after performed in Moscow, then in Berlin conducted by Bruno
Walter, then Philadelphia under Leopold Stokowski, followed by Otto Klemperer and Arturo Toscanini. The
world was singing the praises of Dmitri Shostakovich. Needless to say that Shostakovich continued from 1926
until his death in Moscow on August 9, 1975 to create masterpiece after masterpiece and astound the musical world with his talent. He eventually wrote a total of 15 symphonies, 15 string quartets, 4 operas, 4 ballets, 36 film scores, numerous piano, choral, and chamber works, songs and incidental music.
Shostakovich composed the Twenty-Four Preludes, Opus 34 during the period 1932-33, between his
opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and his bright and theatrical Concerto No.1 for Piano, Trumpet and Strings. The
background tradition of Opus 34 is that of the line begun by Bach, continued by Chopin and later by
Scriabin and Rachmaninov. Thus we find Shostakovich’s preludes ranging through all twenty-four major
and minor keys, their moods swinging from majesty to slapstick, from sorrow to ecstasy. During the 78rpm
– 23 –
era some of these short preludes were recorded by the composer
himself, as well as by Harriet Cohen, William Kapell, Oscar
Levant and in arrangements by Jascha Heifetz and Artie Shaw.
Cherkassky recorded only two: Prelude in C-sharp minor,
Opus 34, No.10 and Prelude in D minor, Opus 34, No.24
(DISC 2, 6 - 7 ).
Piotr I. Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Tchaikovsky poured out his emotions in an astounding
number and variety of works: ten operas, six symphonies, six
symphonic poems, three ballets, three overtures, four orchestral
suites, chamber music, concertos, a large number of piano pieces,
and a hundred or more songs. His music is not flawless in form
like that of Beethoven, nor is it serene and thoughtful like that of
Brahms. Sometimes it is true that his “manner is better than his
matter,” but as beautiful music it is unrivaled for lovely melody
and exquisite coloring. Careless critics have labeled Tchaikovsky
a master of melancholy. It is true that nowhere in music may be
found such an expression of overpowering grief as in the last
movement of Sixth Symphony. It is true that his music reflects his
Cherkassky with conductor Jacques
life, the life of a nervous, highly sensitive man. Tchaikovsky was
a thinker, and if his thoughts on the mysteries of life cast a shadRachmilovich (May 7, 1946)
ow over his work, he was not alone in his gloom. However, not
all his music is gloomy, in fact he produced some of the happiest
melodies of his time. Only a man as complex could have created a masterpiece as wonderful and full of joy as
The Nutcracker. Among his finest piano works is his set of twelve portraits, entitled The Seasons. The editor of
“Nouvelliste,” Nikolai Bernard convinced Tchaikovsky to contribute a monthly piano piece to his publication.
From December 1875 onwards Bernard enticed his readers with these words: “Our celebrated composer
Tchaikovsky is giving his support to the magazine; month by month he will provide a work for piano illustrating a seasonal event by its title and content.” The result eventually was published as Opus 37bis. October:
Autumn Song (DISC 2, 9 ) is one of the most beautiful in the set. In the first edition of the score, the piece
was preceded by a few lines from a poem:
Jctym> jcsgftncz dtcm yfi ,tlysq cfl>
Kbcnmz gj;tkntdibt gj dtnhe ktnzn...
Autumn! Our poor garden strewn with leaves,
Yellow leaves fly in the wind...
From A. Tolstoy’s poem “Autumn! Our poor garden is strewn with leaves”
–Notes by Marina and Victor Ledin, ©2000
– 24 –
SHURA CHERKASSKY
The Historic 1940s Recordings
● ● ● ● ●
DISC 1
1
SAINT-SAËNS: Prelude and Fugue in F minor, Op.90, No.1
3:57
(HMV D.B.9599 (2EA-14737-1))
2
RACHMANINOV: Polka de W. R. (1911)
3:39
(CUPOL 6027 (1627))
3
POULENC: Toccata from Trois Pièces
1:57
(CUPOL 6026 (1668))
4
CHAMINADE: Autrefois, from Six Pièces Humoristiques, Op. 87, No.4
4:23
(HMV D.B.21183 (2EA 14733-1))
BRAHMS: Sonata in F minor, Op.5
30:13
(VOX Set 626 and VLP-6260)
69
I. Allegro maestoso
II. Andante espressivo
III. Scherzo: Allegro energico
IV. Intermezzo (Rückblick): Andante molto
V. Finale: Fugue
6:49
8:56
3:55
3:30
7:03
10
LISZT: Liebesträum No.3 in A-flat Major (S541/R211)
4:17
5
6
7
8
(ELECTROLA E 41145 (7TRA50166)
11
LISZT: Concert Étude No.2 – Gnomenreigen (“Dance of the Gnomes”) (S145/R6)
2:55
(CUPOL 6027 (1669))
LISZT: Four Hungarian Rhapsodies (S244/R106)
(VOX Set 175 (698-701 A/B))
12
13
14
15
Hungarian Rhapsody No.5 in E minor
Hungarian Rhapsody No.6 in D-flat Major
Hungarian Rhapsody No.11 in A minor
Hungarian Rhapsody No.15 in A minor (“Rákóczi March”)
– 25 –
5:53
6:08
4:25
4:43
DISC 2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
KHACHATURIAN: Toccata (1932)
MEDTNER: Fairy Tale in E minor, Op.34, No.2
PROKOFIEV: Suggestion Diabolique, Op.4, No.4
LIADOV: Music Box, Op.32
GLINKA: Tarantella in A minor (1843)
SHOSTAKOVICH: Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op.34, No.10
SHOSTAKOVICH: Prelude in D minor, Op.34, No.24
SCRIABIN: Prelude for the Left-Hand Alone, Op.9, No.1
TCHAIKOVSKY: October: Autumn Song, Op.37bis, No.10
REBIKOV: Waltz from The Christmas Tree, Op.21
(Tracks
11
1
3:08
2:25
2:32
2:28
1:24
2:17
0:28
2:41
3:16
1:45
- 10 originally issued as VOX Set 165 (16023-16026 A/B))
GOULD: Prelude and Toccata (1945)
4:18
(CUPOL 6026 (1666))
12
GOULD: Boogie Woogie Étude (1943)
2:02
(CUPOL 6026 (1668))
13
CHOPIN: Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op.53
6:14
(CUPOL/TELEFUNKEN A15028 (1670 and 1671))
14
CHOPIN: Mazurka in C Major, Op.68, No.1
1:37
(HMV 7ER 5142 (7TEA 641-N))
15
CHOPIN: Mazurka in D Major, Op.33, No.3
2:12
(HMV D.B.21137 (2EA14736-1))
16
CHOPIN: Impromptu No.2 in F-sharp Major, Op.36
5:32
(HMV 7ER 5142 (7TEA 641-N))
17
CHOPIN: Fantasie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op.66
4:49
(HMV 7ER 5142 (7TEA 642-1N))
18
CHOPIN: Fantasie in F minor, Op.49
12:34
(HMV D.B.9599 (2EA14751-1A), D.B.9600 (2EA14752-1A) and (2EA14753-1A))
19
CHOPIN: Étude in C minor, Op.10, No.12
2:31
(HMV D.B.21183 (2EA14738-1))
20
CHOPIN: Étude in C-sharp minor, Op.10, No.4
(HMV D.B.21137 (2EA14736-1))
– 26 –
2:10
Credits
● ● ● ● ●
Executive and Remastering Producer: Michael Rolland Davis
Transfer and Remastering Engineers: Ed Thompson and Victor Ledin
Liner Notes: Marina and Victor Ledin
Design: Communication Graphics
Cover Photograph and Pages 7, 8, 11, 17, 21, 22, 23: Courtesy of the University of Southern California,
on behalf of the USC Library, Department of Special Collections. Special thanks to Dace Taube.
Inside Tray Photo and Page 3: Courtesy of Music Center of Los Angeles County.
Photos by Otto Rothschild, taken in Cherkassky’s Hollywood home on January 14, 1946.
Special thanks to Julio Gonzalez.
Source Materials Provided By: Daniel Berman and Joseph Patrych.
Additional recordings provided by Encore Archives. Additional photographs courtesy of IPAM.
Thanks to Ms. Christa Phelps and the Cherkassky Estate
To place an order or be included on our mailing list:
Ivory Classics®
P.O. Box 341068 • Columbus, Ohio 43234-1068
Phone: 888-40-IVORY or 614-761-8709 • Fax: 614-761-9799
[email protected] • Website: http://www.IvoryClassics.com
– 27 –