# Tchaikovsky: Complete works for cello and orchestra



## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

This week's _Cover 2 Cover _post is another album from the _Brilliant Classics_ label, this one dedicated to the music of *Tchaikovsky*.

As is often the case with these Brilliant Classics releases, this CD is a re-issue (or re-distribution). The recording has been in the catalog of _Saison Russe_, _Le Chant du Monde _and _Harmonia Mundi _since 1994 and features Russian cellist Alexander Rudin and the Moscow-based Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra.

As the official website discusses, Tchaikovsky's complete works for cello and orchestra amount to less than half this disc's duration, comprising as they do a couple of miniatures (the _Pezzo Capriccioso_ and _Nocturne_) and the evergreen _Rococo Variations_. But the first point of importance is that Rudin plays the original version of the score, and not the much more widely available piece of well-meaning butchery by a cellist of Tchaikovsky's own time, Wilhelm Fitzenhagen. Fitzenhagen fiddled around with the order of the variations and left one out altogether, as well as somewhat simplifying the composer's original and strenuous but effective demands upon the soloist. A return to the original reveals what we have been missing in the way of a rather more substantial and coherent work, and there are but one or two rival versions on the market.

In addition, Rudin complements the Variations with the gorgeous interlude from _Sleeping Beauty_ that features a solo cello, as well as an arrangement of the famous _Andante cantabile_ from the First String Quartet.

As filler to this CD, Rudin conducts the orchestra in the _Serenade for Strings_.

Happy Listening!








*Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)*
_Variations on a Rococo Theme_ in A major, Op. 33 [TH 57] (Tchaikovsky's original version)
_Nocturne _[TH 64], No. 4 fromTchaikovsky's Six Pieces for piano, Op. 19 
_Andante cantabile _[TH 63 ] from Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11 
_Pezzo capriccioso_ in B minor, Op. 62 [TH 62]
_Scene of Aurora and Désiré_ (Andante cantabile), Adapted from _The Sleeping Beauty_, Op. 66 (Act II, No. 15 (a))
(*) _Serenade for String Orchestra_ in C major, Op. 48 [TH 48]

Alexander Rudin, cello
Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra
Nikolay Alekseev and Alexander Rudin (*), conducting

Recorded 1993.11 and 1993.02 (*) at Mosfilm Studios, Moscow

Website - https://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/t/tchaikovsky-complete-works-for-cello-and-orchestra/


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