In his liner notes, Yevgeny Sudbin remembers falling in love with Tchaikovsky's music when he was introduced to classical music. On this album, the pianist presents a collection of piano pieces and arrangements for piano, solo and four hands, of orchestral works by the great Russian composer, preceding it with a curtain raiser much-loved by Tchaikovsky himself: Mikhail Glinka's Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila. The piano pieces selected by Sudbin spans some twenty years of Tchaikovsky's career and takes in the ever-popular Barcarolle (June) and Troika (November) from The Seasons as well as three pieces from the composer's last work for piano, the 18 Pieces, Op. 72. To these are added two waltzes from The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty, here performed in four-hand piano arrangements with Sudbin's 12-year-old daughter Bella playing the ‘primo’ part. The pièce de resistance of this album, however, is Sudbin's arrangement of the famous overture-fantasy Romeo and Juliet in which the composer, according to Sudbin, ‘lays bare his soul and where some of his most incredible music can be found’. To the pianist, the rawness and vulnerability of human emotions' displayed in Tchaikovsky's music is almost unparalleled, something which his own performance here serve to confirm.

REVIEW:

Evgeny Sudbin releases an entire SACD of piano music by Piotr Tchaikovsky. These are partly original works from the well-known piano cycles or Sudbin’s own transcriptions of pieces such as Waltz of the Flowers, Waltz from Sleeping Beauty, Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture and Glinka’s Ruslan & Ludmila Overture. All of this is played with virtuosity, elegance, and brilliance. Sudbin has a phenomenal technique, he is a virtuoso of the best kind, for his playing is very musical and sensitive.

-- Pizzicato (Remy Franck)

Sudbin and daughter sparkle fairy dust over Tchaikovsky’s works for piano.

Despite our emergence from the global pandemic – some of us sooner than others – lockdown projects keep popping up on disc. This one, from Russian-born, British pianist Yevgeny Sudbin, is especially rewarding, featuring enjoyable arrangements of Tchaikovsky ‘s orchestral music alongside miniature gems that are often underrepresented in recital.

Sudbin opens with a bravura take on one of Tchaikovsky’s avowed favourites: the showstopping overture from Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmila. In his sleeve notes, the pianist recalls the countless times he’s been forced to wait in the wings listening to the swirling strings and thundering timpani that drive this most ubiquitous of orchestral works. His arrangement, he laughs, is by way of revenge, but the joke’s on him as it is the pianist who has to grapple here with fiendish fingerings, virtuoso flourishes and hand-numbing glissandos. That aside, it’s a rip-roaring way to open a disc and Sudbin – hands flying across the keyboard – gets the spirit of the thing just right in a no-holds-barred performance.

The disc concludes with a real coup: Sudbin’s arrangement of the Overture-Fantasy Romeo and Juliet, a work easily taken for granted, but one that reveals remarkable depths in its solo piano guise. From its brooding, Russian-infused opening (which here exudes the spirit of Mussorgsky), through the fireworks of the rival houses and the Lisztian swell of the famous lovers’ theme, this tour-de-force transcription really hits the mark, especially in Sudbin’s astute and heartfelt reading.

-- Limelight