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Russian Transcriptions / Vyacheslav Gryaznov

Release Date: 05/18/2018
Label: Steinway & Sons Catalog #: 30082
Composer:  Alexander Borodin ,  Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky ,  Sergei Rachmaninov ,  Sergei Prokofiev  ...  Performer:  Vyacheslav Gryaznov Number of Discs: 1

"The art of transcription is a genre that is an integral part of my creative life. It’s an opportunity to look at some well-known pages of the past and feel modernity and novelty in them and express this dialog of epochs and styles. The process of creating any piano transcription is completely unique each and every time. I very much enjoy this unpredictability, and love when a spontaneous idea comes into my mind and yields an absolutely new and fresh vision of the music with which I am working."

-- Vyacheslav Gryaznov

Album Credits:

Recorded April 25–27, 2017 at Steinway Hall, New York City.
Producer: Jon Feidner
Engineer: Lauren Sturm
Production Assistant: Renée Read more Oakford

Executive Producer: Jon Feidner
Art Direction: Jackie Fugere
Design: Cover to Cover Design, Anilda Carrasquillo
Piano Technician: Lauren Sturm
Piano: Steinway Model D #597590 (New York)

Review:

The title Russian Transcriptions for these works by pianist Vyacheslav Gryaznov doesn't give the artist quite enough credit: they are not simply reworkings for piano of music originally composed in other media, but rather arrangements that creatively adapt the music for maximum effect. As such, they fall into a long tradition, but one that has been neglected. Gryaznov is more purely a product of the Russian School than many of his compatriots, although there has been an American aspect to his career that has resulted in the present recording. He has written some 30 of these arrangements, and even if it's a shame not to hear his Rhapsody in Black, based on Gershwin, that's understandable in view of the focus on Russian material here. At any rate, this is a welcome return to a grand tradition. There is virtuosity aplenty, perhaps in unexpected places (sample the little Italian Polka of Rachmaninov), but really the most fun are the pieces that draw attention to the player as a poetic figure: the little-heard ballet music On the Dnieper, Op. 51, of Prokofiev, comes alive in Gryaznov's flexible, lovingly shaped renderings. Gryaznov, born on a Russian Pacific island, is an artist to watch, developing outside the constraints placed on the flood of Russian musicians jockeying for a place in the British scene, and that he has found his way to the American Steinway & Sons label, which has devoted itself to reconstructing the virtuoso past, is cause for celebration.

-- AllMusic Guide

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