Thursday, March 3, 2022

Can Daniil Trifonov help Mosolov become better known?

Daniil Trifonov playing at Carnegie Hall in 2017 (Creative Commons photo). 

I have been listening to the extended version of The Silver Age by the pianist Daniil Trifonov. I learned about the album via Tyler Cowen, who noted that it has been one of the best reviewed albums of 2021.  It's available on Hoopla Digital, which is offered by most public libraries in the U.S. 

While the new album has music by Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Scriabin, there is the intriguing possibility that Trifonov might consider recording music by Alexander Mosolov. An article from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's website says:

"Trifonov is also learning a concerto by little-known Russian composer Alexander Mosolov (1900-1973), who served in World War I and received a medical discharge because of post-traumatic stress disorder. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1925, but ran afoul of Soviet authorities in the 1930s, getting a prison sentence shortened only through the intervention of some prominent fellow composers. Trifonov calls the composer’s virtually unknown concerto a 'bit of a curiosity': 'It’s quite an original work, and it’s almost never played.' ”

While it's certainly already possible to listen to recordings of Mosolov's first piano concerto -- I own two of them, one featuring pianist Rusudan Khuntsaria, the other with Steffen Schleiermacher as the soloist -- a recording by someone as well known as Trifonov would be helpful in providing attention to Mosolov. 


1 comment:

  1. Sounds good. I listened to Stravinsky conducting his Symphony of Psalms yesterday, and I ordered a copy of The Romantic Exiles by Carr. The Carr book focuses on the writer Alexander Herzen. I find myself in a Russian mood. The Decembrists influenced both Herzen and Robert Anton Wilson

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