Rachmaninoff, Medtner & Tchaikovsky: Piano Works Nikolay Medvedev

• Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943): Moments musicaux, Op. 16:
• 1 Rachmaninoff: Moments musicaux, Op. 16: No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, Andantino 07:44
• 2 Rachmaninoff: Moments musicaux, Op. 16: No. 2 in E-Flat Minor, Allegretto 02:59
• 3 Rachmaninoff: Moments musicaux, Op. 16: No. 3 in B Minor, Andante cantabile 04:51
• 4 Rachmaninoff: Moments musicaux, Op. 16: No. 4 in E Minor, Presto 03:04
• 5 Rachmaninoff: Moments musicaux, Op. 16: No. 5 in D-Flat Major, Adagio sostenuto 04:16
• 6 Rachmaninoff: Moments musicaux, Op. 16: No. 6, in C Major, Maestoso 04:37
• Nikolai Medtner (1880 -1951): Piano Sonata in G Minor, Op. 22:
• 7 Medtner: Piano Sonata in G Minor, Op. 22 16:52
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893): Grand Sonata in G Major, Op. 37, TH 139:
• 8 Tchaikovsky: Grand Sonata in G Major, Op. 37, TH 139: I. Moderato e risoluto 14:09
• 9 Tchaikovsky: Grand Sonata in G Major, Op. 37, TH 139: II. Andante non troppo quasi moderato 10:41
• 10 Tchaikovsky: Grand Sonata in G Major, Op. 37, TH 139: III. Scherzo. Allegro giocoso 02:49
• 11 Tchaikovsky: Grand Sonata in G Major, Op. 37, TH 139: IV. Finale. Allegro vivace 07:00
• Total Runtime 01:19:02

Info for Rachmaninoff, Medtner & Tchaikovsky: Piano Works

From Robert Matthew Walker’s notes for this debut disc of Nikolay Medvedev: Interviewed by Musical America in 1921, Rachmaninoff was asked: 'would you agree that the heart should be the composer’s guide through the labyrinths of accepted forms?' 'Yes', he replied, 'the heart above all. Of course, the head must aid in the building of great musical structures, but by itself the head is impotent. If a composer is devoid of heart or hasn’t his heart in the right place, it is impossible for him to conceal his deficiency. This explains why Russian music is so superlatively great; it speaks so directly to the heart. That is what gives it its vital beauty, its universality of appeal, and thus all great art is universal and national in character—it were better to say local instead of national—at one and the same moment.'

Nikolay Medvedev, piano

Nikolay Medvedev
was born in 1986. He studied at the Krasnodar Rimsky-Korsakov Music College, the Krasnodar State University of Culture and Arts, the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music (under the guidance of Alexei Skavronsky and Tatiana Zelikman) and undertook a postgraduate study at the Academy (class of Tatiana Zelikman).

He has taken lessons from Vladimir Tropp, Nikolai Petrov, Dmitry Bashkirov, Emanuel Krasovsky, Alexander Mndoyants, Jerome Rose, Vladimir Viardo, José Ribera and William Noll. He has been a grant-recipient of the Russian Culture Foundation, the Glazunov Foundation, the New Names foundation and the Russian Performing Arts foundation. In 2010 he received the most prestigious in Russia Triumph youth prize. Since 2015 he has taught at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music (solo piano and chamber music faculties).

Prize-winner at several competitions, including the International Mily Balakirev Russian Piano Competition in Krasnodar (First prize), the International Pancho Vladigerov Piano Competition in Shumen (Third prize), the International Piano Competition in Campillos (Second prize), the International Vladimir Horowitz Young Pianists' Competition (Second prize and Special Salle Cortot Prize), the All-Russian Benditsky Open Piano Competition (Grand Prix), the International Piano Competition in Memory of Vera Lotar-Shevchenko (First prize), the All-Russian Music Competition in Moscow (First prize), XV International Tchaikovsky competition (semi-final).

Nikolay appears in cities throughout Russia, Europe and the USA and he performs concerts at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, the Moscow House of Music, the Bolshoi Theatre, the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music, the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre, the St Petersburg State Philharmonic and various other venues in Russia and abroad, such as: Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Copenhagen, Bergen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Belgrade, Capetown, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Naples (Florida), Shenzchen etc. He has taken part in the international festival A Week of Rostropovich in Moscow and the International Piano Festival in Saint-Petersburg.

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