BORIS TCHAIKOVSKY (1925-1996): Violin Sonata, Sonata for 2 Pianos, Solo Piano: 5 Pieces, 5 Preludes, 5 Pieces, Etudes in F Sharp Minor, B Flat and E, March, Prelude, 3 Pieces.

Description: The Sonata for Two Pianos dates from 1973 and is in the composer's mature style. The music is tonal, relatively spare of texture and organized in blocks with an obstinate rhythmic element. Sections in pounding repeated notes, octaves and chords seem to cry out to be orchestrated, though presumably this was not the composer's intention, preferring the harder-edged, mechanistic piano texture. The second movement is a set of variations with a descriptive title, 'Voice of the Fields'. A gentle sequence of chords provides a theme, which is explored with nostalgia, simplicity and an underlying melancholy, developing into a somber little march in the middle. The gestures on which the finale is based are rapid scales, and the whirlwind movement evokes a humorously demented send-up of Hanon exercises and what must be a deliberate distorted take on Rimsky's Flight of the Bumble Bee. The shorter works are all very early, from the composer's 10th year and shortly after, showing a precociously gifted child emulating various Romantic models, experimenting with characteristic Russian melodies and motifs, and noticeably evolving in a few short years in the direction of Rachmaninov and early Scriabin. The exceptions are two etudes and a prelude written half a century later, in more motoric, less lush style, and the March and Three Pieces from 1945, the only piano works here in which the influence of his teachers Myaskovsky and Shostakovich is apparent. The appealing 1959 Violin Sonata falls stylistically between the two types of piano works as it does chronologically. Lyrical and eloquent and long-breathed, it shows the influence of Shostakovich in a stately, elegiac first movement and a sprightly, dancing second, both in sonata form. Dmitry Korostelyov (piano), Olga Solovieva (piano - violin sonata and secondo), Marina Dichenko (violin).