The viola da gamba is not dead, despite a claim to the contrary in the Dictionary of Musicians by German composer, organist and cellist Ernst Ludwig Gerber (1746-1819). From the 16th century to the end of the 18th, the viola da gamba experienced a true apotheosis, becoming the favoured instrument for bourgeois entertainment, particularly in Germany, France, Italy and England, even if the instrument's origins lie in the Spanish Renaissance. Because of these associations with the aristocracy, but also because of advances in musical style that demanded more from the role of the lower member of the string family, the gamba lost ground to the newer cello during the French Revolution. Limited interest in the instrument persisted through the 19th century, until a rebirth occurred thanks to German cellists Christian Dobereiner (1874-1961) and Paul Grummer (1879-1965), and later the Austrian Karl Maria Schwamberger (1905-1967) and Swiss cellist August Wenzinger (1905-1996), a pupil of Grummer's and a founder, in 1925, of one of Germany's first early music ensembles. Wenzinger was appointed cello and viola da gamba teacher at Basle's new Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where Giacomo Nones (1929-2017) and Jordi Savall (b.1941) would become his pupils. Dobereiner was one of the most important pioneers at the dawn of modern research into historical performance practice, considered to have revived both the viola da gamba and the baryton from obscurity. From his Sarabande, in Handelian style, only the solo part has survived, and the basso continuo has been reconstructed by Matteo Malagoli. Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) was an important Russian pianist and composer. He invented his own harmonic language, combining major and minor hexachords in a pentatonic scale that blended old Russian patterns and Georgian (Caucasian) harmonies. During a stay in France he became friends with Paul Grummer and in 1969 published a lovely Sonata da chiesa for viola da gamba and organ dedicated to Grummer and his daughter Sylvia. Giuseppe Selmi (1912-1987) was a gifted concert cellist, performing both with orchestra and piano. As a composer, he wrote several works for solo cello, with piano and with harp (he played in a duo with his wife Maria Dongellini). Following the gift of a viola da gamba (built by Paolo Leonori in 1952) from his wife in the 1970s, he became a passionate advocate for the instrument, writing works for it with harp or solo. Giacomo Nones (1929-2017) dedicated himself from a young age to classical music and the popular music from his native Trentino, studying violin, organ and viola da gamba, as well as musicology and organology. He has edited transcriptions and publications of Renaissance and Baroque music and has collaborated with various early music ensembles. Passionate about contemporary music, in particular 'computer music', he wrote his 10 small Algorithms for two viols with the use of a computer according to theories by the Russian mathematician Rudolf Zaripov. His only other viola da gamba works are the very different Partitas on the Lutheran chorale Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan for gamba and organ, and the Fantasia for solo viol on the Kyrie of the Gregorian 'Orbis factor' Mass. Riccardo Giavina (1937-2019) was a Piedmontese pianist and composer, later a teacher and headmaster at the 'Bonporti' Conservatory of Trento and Riva del Garda. A friend of Giacomo Nones, in April 1977 he dedicated his three short pieces for three viols (soprano, tenor and bass) to the other composer. Written in late Renaissance style, they are aimed at extending the original literature for viola da gamba into the 20th century. - Recorded April 2022 in Silvelle; July, August & December 2023 in Ponte nelle Alpi; and January 2024 in Trento (Italy) - Booklet in English contains liner notes and a profile of each of the composers - Matteo Malagoli plays a viola da gamba by Marco Salerno (Rome - Barcelona, 2004) - Cristina Centa plays a Salvi harp - Stefano Rattini plays a harpsichord by Fabrizio Acanfora (Naples, 1997) and at the Carlo Vegezzi-Bossi organ (1907; restored Mascioni, 2000) of the Trento Philharmonic Society

Paris was the musical destination for many Russian emigre composers between the two World Wars, with both Grechaninov, from an older generation, and Tcherepnin, from a younger one, living in the city. Grechaninov's Piano Trio No. 2 in G major is a brightly decorative work, whereas Tcherepnin's concise, refined orientalism in the Piano Trio, Op. 34 is influenced by French modernism and the Russian avant-garde. Daniele Amfitheatrof moved to Rome where he wrote his beautiful, sunlit Piano Trio, richly imbued with the aura of Puccini and Mascagni. The dazzling Piano Trio on Hebrew Themes by New York-based Jacob Weinberg incorporates synagogue and Russian tunes, quotations from Bizet, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann, as well as tango rhythms.

This is the first of two volumes dedicated to works featuring violin and piano by Nikolay Tcherepnin and his son Alexander. Pianist Giorgio Koukl and violinist Klaidi Sahatci are joined by cellist Johann Sebastian Paetsch in the Trio Concertante and Piano Trio. All but one of the works in this collection are world premiere recordings including the recently discovered early Violin Sonata in C minor by Alexander Tcherepnin.

John Bruce Yeh, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s celebrated assistant principal clarinet and solo E-flat clarinet for over 40 years, headlines a program of lyrical and engaging chamber and solo works by noteworthy Windy City composers of the past and present, including three world-premiere recordings. Yeh, with Patrick Godon, the Chicago Symphony’s principal keyboardist, and freelance clarinetist Teresa Reilly, who performs with the CSO at home and on tour, presents mid-20th-century works by Alexander Tcherepnin and Leo Sowerby, a late-century work by Robert Muczynski, and recent pieces by Stacy Garrop, Shulamit Ran, and clarinetist Reilly.

World-premiere recordings include the album’s centerpiece, Sowerby’s witty and inventive 1938 Sonata for Clarinet and Piano; Ran’s tender, heartfelt Spirit for solo B-flat Clarinet; and Reilly’s The Forgiveness Train for two clarinets, an insistently rhythmic, pandemic-fueled dreamscape about personal peril amid natural beauty. Garrop’s dramatic Phoenix Rising — a world-premiere recording of the version for clarinet — depicts the fiery death and triumphant rebirth of the Phoenix of Greek and Egyptian myth. The album opens with Tcherepnin’s vivacious Sonata in one movement for clarinet and piano. Muczynski’s Time Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, a popular repertoire staple, brings the program to a brilliant close.

REVIEWS:

John Bruce Yeh, longtime clarinetist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has commissioned various contemporary works, several of which are heard here. One, Teresa Reilly’s The Forgiveness Train, is a duet for two clarinets, in which Yeh is joined by Reilly, his spouse. It is quite an effective bespoke work, with constantly absorbing contrasts in tone between the two clarinets. Yeh is also persuasive in the demanding Spirit for solo B flat clarinet of Shulamit Ran. There are older works, including the Time Pieces for clarinet and piano, Op. 43, of Robert Muczynski, the only piece in the whole bunch that has any kind of currency on the concert stage. Listeners may be surprised to note the presence of the Clarinet Sonata in one movement of Alexander Tcherepnin on the program, but he lived and taught in Chicago in his later years. Is there a consistent Chicago thread connecting these composers? Maybe not, but the program has a certain consistency, and it is beautifully played by one of the world’s leading orchestral clarinetists.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

John Bruce Yeh (b. 1957) is now the longest-serving clarinetist in CSO history, so it is not surprising that a series of events including being asked by the Chicago-based Cedille label about recording Leo Sowerby’s Wind Quintet would eventually lead to this album.

In the course of researching Sowerby, Yeh discovered his Sonata, a large, four-movement work that forms the centerpiece of this album. It is a solidly entertaining work; given that it was first published in 1944. While doing his research, Yeh next discovered the Tcherepnin Sonata, the sprightly little piece that leads off the program with a burst of joyous energy.

Although the whole album is enjoyable, especially if you are happen to be as big a fool for a clarinet as I am other highlights include the three pieces by women composers: Stacy Garrop’s colorful and evocative Phoenix Rising, in which Yeh is able to produce some startling tones from his instrument; Shulamit Ran’s Spirit, dedicated to a dear friend of the composer and expressing a wide range of emotion; and Teresa Reilly’s Train of Forgiveness, on which Yeh and Reilly play together, clearly enjoying the opportunity.

Don’t let the fact that this is music from the 20th and 21st centuries from composers with names that may be unfamiliar give the idea that this music must be harsh and forbidding. It is, rather, music that is enticing to the ear. Not syrupy sweet, but rather thoughtful and enduring. There are liner notes with helpful essays on the music and background information about the performers, and the sonics are up to the usual high Cedille standard.

-- Classical Candor

This album explores music by three generations of the Tcherepnin family of composers: Nikolai, Alexander and Ivan. Although each wrote a wide range of scores, from solo pieces to operas and ballets, this recording focuses on their chamber music, presenting pieces spanning 95 years. Nikolai's works for violin and piano reveal a late-Romantic, post-Tchaikovskian sensibility, whereas those of Alexander have a more modern, twentieth-century touch, closer to the style of his friend Sergei Prokofiev (a student of his father). Ivan is represented by two works - early and late - for flute, clarinet and piano, which have an improvisatory and playful quality.

REVIEW:

Chamber music from three generations and almost 100 years from the Tcherepnin family, is presented on this CD. The family is represented by Nikolai, Alexander and Ivan. The works for violin and piano are by Nikolai and Alexander. Ivan is represented by compositions for flute, clarinet and piano. In five cases these are premiere recordings. Their music always develops on the basis of their Russian roots, which also leads to folk-song sounding elements. However, other influences always play into the music, such as expressionism in Nikolai’s case, Peruvian culture in Ivan’s, and in the well-traveled Alexander’s diverse influences and penchant for hexachordal scales alternating semitones and minor thirds. These recordings from a concert performance offer an opportunity to get acquainted with this assemblage of three generations of musicians – the fourth is not represented here. By far the best known, Alexander, is represented with his violin sonata and three small works for this instrumentation. The internationally experienced performers, all of whom have a connection to the United States, particularly Boston, offer a carefully crafted and spiritedly presented picture of these works by the three composers in mature performances.

-- Pizzicato

In 1925-26 the French publisher Heugel brought out three volumes of 24 songs by the young Russian composer Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977), all setting poems by the 'Acmeist' Russian poet, Sergei Gorodetsky (1884-1967) - Tcherepnin's Opp. 15, 16 and 17. Not until 2014, when Tatyana Kebuladze, the pianist on this recording, examined the composer's manuscript in the archives of the Sacher Foundation in Basel was it realized that those three recueils were the tips of a much larger iceberg: a cycle of 35 settings of the 37 poems in Gorodetsky's collection My Flowering Staff, plus an anonymous epilogue - one of the most extensive song-cycles in musical history. The songs themselves are audibly in the tradition of Tchaikovsky and other such Romantic Russian composers, but with a degree of psychological insight conveyed through the harmonic piquancy typical of the new century.

This unusual album begins with archival recordings, in excellent sound, of the Russian-born composer-pianist Tcherepnin (1899–1977) playing some of his most memorable piano music. The 2nd part of the CD, performed by the Russian pianist Shilyaev, presents a selection of attractive, rarely heard works from various periods in Tcherepnin's career.

REVIEW:

As the only composer to have done significant work in all 5 UN Security Council nations—Russia, Britain, France, China, and the USA—it is unsurprising that Willi Reich, in his biography called Alexander Tcherepnin a ‘musical citizen of the world’.

Piano Sonata No.1 began life as No. 14 but Tcherepnin destroyed vast amounts of his juvenilia; not that you’d ever guess that this sonata was written by someone so young it is so incredibly self assured, an assurance which will have come from all the works he had previously composed. It is a fabulously rich piece of writing with a theme that emerges in the first movement that would have been worthy of Liszt. This sonata and the Op. 85 piece are played by the composer himself showing his complete mastery of the instrument both technically and compositionally.

Incredible as it may seem for such a prolific composer his second sonata had to wait 42 years to be written. The first movement is fascinating, alternating between lento and animato while the second, marked andantino is wistfully beautiful. The final animato has the sonata finally disappear mid-phrase.

His Quatre Préludes Nostalgiques from 1922 come next, the first of which creates an air of mystery. The second is a quiet interlude before the third’s tempestuoso lives up to its name. The last one is a mixture of sadness and grandeur.

The final work on the disc played by the composer himself is a little 1½ minute cracker with almost all the notes coming from the piano’s lowest register. At this point pianist Mikhail Shilyaev takes over showing how gently he can caress the keys which is what is required with the first of his contributions Moment Musical from 1913, when the composer was only 14, and is its first recording.

From 1918 to 1919 we have another first recording, Tcherepnin’s Petite Suite. This is full of delights. Rondo à la Russe from 1946 is “Russian” as it is supposed to be but interestingly Tcherepnin otherwise rarely shows his origins in his music though sometimes he does remind one of Rachmaninoff or Prokofiev. Entretiens composed over a ten year period from 1920 to 1930 is in ten parts, all of them showing the composer’s inventive flair. One of the recurring ideas in his music is the evocation of bells as with the final piece from the set.

Tcherepnin enjoyed fun as much as being serious and this is amply demonstrated in the little Polka from 1944. Scherzo from 1917 has elements of both Prokofiev, Tcherepnin’s idol at the time, and Rachmaninoff, though much harsher in sound to his lushness, though it begins that way. The set of 10 little pieces that together form Expressions, dating from 1951, are the only ones played by Shilyaev that are not first recordings and each bears a title rather than a tempo marking. At the Fair brings some Russian elements into play and I was reminded of Stravinsky. Barcarolle is a beautiful and delightful sounding piece and one of the longest on the disc at 3 minutes long; Tcherepnin had an amazing ability to exploit ideas within a tiny time-frame. La Quatrième from 1948-9, the last offering, is another first recording. It’s full of grandeur and the title is a reference to the Fourth Republic in France which heralded its post-war era following liberation. It received its première only in 1959 since it was part of a project by the publisher to have several compositions from immigrant composers of the École de Paris group in a collection that never materialized.

The overall impression one is left with after hearing this disc and others of Tcherepnin’s music is the breadth of his inventiveness; there is never a dull moment and discovering his music has been one of the musical highlights for me this year. As one would expect the tracks recorded this year sound fresher and crisper than those recorded by the composer in March 1965, though to have his own interpretations of those works is so valuable. Tcherepnin showed what a considerable pianist he was while Shilyaev amply shows his interpretive skills with that full range of moods and touches. This is vital for music that can range from a mere whisper to almost cataclysmic thunder.

The booklet notes by Benjamin Folkman are extremely well written, highly informative and contribute towards making the whole experience both enjoyable and memorable. If you have discovered the wonderful world of Tcherepnin’s piano music then this disc is a must for you and, if not, it is a perfect place to start to get to know this fascinating composer.

-- MusicWeb International