Viktoria Postnikova & Tchaikovsky

No. 304 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages, which can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast304

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Today’s installment of our year-long look at piano sonatas considers two sonatas by Tchaikovsky, from Viktoria Postnikova’s seminal Erato Complete Tchaikovsky Solo Piano  works (which, by the way, includes the rarely recorded set of piano four-hand folksongs with her husband Gennady Rozhdestvensky).

As a Gramophone article posits, it is somewhat surprising that we have in the one handTchaikovsky composing  one of the Piano repertoire’s most recognized pianio concerti (his infamoud B-Flkat concerto), yet his solo piano music is relatively obscure. The article points out that this is a bit of a Western  perspective, as Tchaikovsky’s works are well-performed by Russian pianists, and that many of his works have pedagogical merit.

When perusing the Tchaikovsky catalog,  we find the piano works are typically laid out is collections of pieces – including The Seasons – with a few interspersed single titles, and two piano sonatas, both programmed here in today’s montage.

Tchaikovsky's Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor was written in 1865, during the composer's final year as a student at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, and only published after his death. The Sonata was published in 1900 (as "Opus 80") under the editorship of Sergey Taneyev, who made corrections and supplied some bars in the Andante. The second subject of the finale (from bar 51) is based on a theme from the Agitato and Allegro in E minor, which Tchaikovsky had written as a student exercise in 1863 or 1864  The Scherzo (third movement) of the sonata was adapted by Tchaikovsky to become the Scherzo of his Symphony No. 1, begun the year after composing the sonata.

At this time the sonata was being prepared for publication the pianist Aleksandr Ziloti objected to the publication of the sonata in full, and insisted that it should be cut. Ziloti played the first and third movements of the sonata (only) in two of his concerts—in Odessa and Moscow in the Fall of 1900.

Tchaikovsky's Grand Sonata  in G major was written in March and April 1878 on his sister's estate at Kamenka. A composition contemporaneous to his violin concerto, the Sonata is dedicated to Karl Klindworth, although this name does not appear on the manuscript score, and was only added later while the first edition was being prepared.

Completing the podcast, The Dumka in C minor (subtitled "Russian Rustic Scene") was the result of a commission from the Parisian music publisher Félix Mackar, who in the 1880s had begun to publish Tchaikovsky's works in France.

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