Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) was one of the last great Russian composer-pianists, a truly cosmopolitan figure who mainly resided in Paris and the US after enforced exile following the 1917 revolution. Born in St. Petersburg, he was in fact part of a great dynasty of composers: Father Nicolas (1873- 1945) was the author of a number of highly convincing late romantic scores, as well as an eminent conductor and pedagogue (he counted the young Serge Prokofiev amongst his conducting pupils). Sons Serge (b. 1941) and Ivan (1943-98) have both produced significant work inspired by the Darmstadt school, working with both Boulez and Stockhausen and pursuing an interest in electronic music. Indeed Ivan headed the electronic music section of Harvard University for a number of years, and Serge was the inventor of a music synthesiser.

But of all the Tcherepnins, Alexander was by far the most prolific. His extraordinary jet-setting lifestyle is reflected in the enormously energetic and varied corpus of piano works he left posterity. To a large extent the places Tcherepnin resided in and visited affected the way in which he composed. He was an artist who most obviously became inspired by cultures and others around him. Thus it is easy to understand why the grand virtuoso late romantic idiom is prevalent in the 14 piano sonatas and five concertos ( all unpublished) composed in St Petersburg before Tcherepnin's nineteenth birthday. This was an artist who knew personally many of the great Russian composers of the early twentieth century. Because of father Tcherepnin , figures like Prokofiev, Glazunov, Rimsky Korsakov, Stravinsky and Myaskovsky to mention but a few came into personal contact with Tcherepnin junior from his earliest years of childhood, and the influences of these composers, plus Scriabin and later Shostakovich , can all be heard in his music.

During the civil war the Tcherepnin family fled to the Caucasus, and then on to Paris by 1921, a city which Alexander loved and in which he was eventually to reside for many years. Thus the sophisticated chic, the urbane wit and often the cool craftsmanship of many a later Tcherepnin score, betraying the influences of 'Les Six' and of Poulenc in particular, is not so difficult to understand. In many ways Paris took the young Russian to its heart, and though he never quite managed the success, the notoriety of a Stravinsky (or even a Prokofiev) he did receive a number of significant commissions, and for a time titles appeared exclusively in French (eg the cantata 'Le jeu de la Nativite' of 1945).

There is also an Oriental influence, for Tcherepnin visited China and Japan between 1934 and 37, concertising, teaching and founding a music publishing venture for the promotion of young Chinese and Japanese composers. He also married the Chinese pianist Lee Hsien-Ming during this period, and so naturally enough there is a whole series of Japanese and Chinese inspired works, utilising folksong, pentatonic scale formations, and so on.

Mention should also be made of the composer's love of America. Not only did he regularly concertise in the states, he also taught alongside his wife in the faculty of De Paul University in Chicago for 15 years from 1949, becoming a US citizen in 1958. Works from his 'American period' such as the second, mature, piano sonata, often show highly sophisticated handling of rhythm, alongside a new sparseness of texture and admirable economy of material. Quite often there is a penchant for the extreme registers of the instrument, and the terseness of the music on the printed page makes the writing appear quite austere.

By all accounts Tcherepnin led a remarkably hectic lifestyle, zooming around the globe for concert season upon concert season until the very end in the late 1970's. Despite his busy schedule, his genius has never been appreciated to the extent it surely deserves to be. His son Ivan used to say that this may have been in part because there are no less than 34 publishers of Alexander Tcherepnin at the last count! Rather than benefit from the concentrated, exclusive promotion of a Boosey and Hawkes or a Schott, Tcherepnin's vast catalogue (in terms of mature piano pieces along we are talking about at least 7 CDs, never mind the 14 juvenilia Sonatas and early pieces) has been made to appear diffuse, eclectic and lacking in the disciplined logic and individuality of Bartok or Prokofiev (two composers whom Tcherepnin is most often unfavourably compared with). After the composer's death in 1977 his widow heroically attempted to promote his music around the world, notably at Dartington in this country, but her gallant efforts sadly failed to win the long term large-scale success which a composer of this stature surely deserves.

Tcherepnin's adoration of Prokofiev and his interest in Oriental music immediately colours and permeates much of his music for the piano, but as he matured as a composer he gradually formulated his own harmonic and rhythmic theories which retain great individuality and conviction to this very day. Scale patterns in Tcherepnin are often derived from a nine note scale, divided symmetrically into three units: C, D, E flat, E, F sharp, G and G sharp A sharp, B). This melodic basis is often used to form a specially spiced harmonic idiom, and of course to an extent it is close in spirit to the serial, note row system of composition. In terms of pianism it often means that a performer has to re-think conceptions about fingering, but one of the great hallmarks of this composer's works for the instrument is the tactile craftsmanship-of the very highest order- which is always in evidence.

Tcherepnin also developed original theories with regard to rhythm, in which 'thematic rhythmic units' were juxtaposed, contrasted, superimposed, fragmented and developed in sequences. He called this methodology 'Interpoint' and it can be heard in striking style in the virtuoso show piece for solo piano 'Message' of 1926, arguably Tcherepnin's most individual work for piano and a work closely related to the third Concerto (see below). Indeed this is a stunningly convincing utterance, complete with irregular phrase units, extreme leaps, sparse uncompromisingly percussive textures and an enormous sense of inner momentum towards the concluding climactic bars, marked by three violent knocks on the lid of the piano. This is music which makes a tremendous impression on the concert stage, and though there are undoubtedly hints of Bartok and Stravinsky there , the textures, the rhythmic energy, the structure and the harmonic language could not have been written by anyone else.

But how can the newcomer to this monumental corpus of music begin to get a clear picture? Amidst the hugely contrasted scores it is all too easy to become bewildered. Indeed there is sometimes huge variety within single works, as in the Twelve Preludes, op.85 (1952-3) where the atonal and the grotesque exists side by side with pieces which Rachmaninov would not have found anything other than conservative! In fact it is a case of grouping various compositions together, pieces which share the same ethos, or stylistic stigmata. In this task one could do much worse than look at the Six Concertos for Piano and Orchestra. They are all major works in the Tcherepnin catalogue, but also totally different from one another. Their size and significance however makes each one ideally suited as 'parental figures' or 'family tree branches' around which we can place many other shorter compositions.

The first piano concerto, op.12 (1920) functions in many ways as the climax of Tcherepnin's early period. Though completed in the Caucasus, it received its first performance with the composer as soloist in Monte Carlo in 1923. This is a big one movement romantic structure in seven sections with thematic over-laps and metamorphosis very much in the manner of similar piano concertos by the likes of Balakirev, Glazunov and Rimsky-Korsakov, yet the use of pounding energetic rhythms from the very opening and throughout the whole work makes it indicative of a talent much more significant than a merely promising student. Sweeping textures, heroically memorable melodies, monumental post-Anon Rubinstein pianism in the solo part, and astutely judged motivic transformations of the opening material all attracts favourable comment, as does the massive octave and chordal writing in the impressively-charged cadenza. The concerto is as much a stamina test for the string players as the soloist, for much of the writing from the opening tutti onwards demands that the strings repeat over and over again obstinate figures at forte almost in the manner of contemporary minimalist writers such as Philip Glass or Steve Reich! Certainly the long pedal points are striking, and though the orchestration at times appears to err a little too much on the side of density and bustle, the soloist is able to project over the mêlée for the most part. The fugal and scherzando transformations in the concerto's latter stages are impressively realised, and the concluding flourishes are spectacularly exciting in the most youthful of senses.

With Concerto no.2, op.26 (1922-3) the ghosts of Glazunov, Rimsky and co. are largely left behind. The work was initially premiered by the composer with Nadia Boulanger playing the orchestral reduction on a second piano (Paris, 1924). It is Tcherepnin's most immediately impressive concerto . Cast in one single movement it is closely related to the concertos of Prokofiev, Kabalevsky and Shostakovich, and begins with the most rousing and memorable trumpet and drum motive imaginable- the sort of melodic cell that once heard simply refuses to leave your head! The pianism required here is percussive, motoric, scalic, energised in the Prokofiev manner, and economical with regard to chords and unnecessary figurations. This was the concerto which the composer himself played more than any other throughout his career, and it is an essentially popular work which many a student in particular would benefit from studying. It seems sad and bewildering that the concert going public today is deprived of even an occasional performance of this joyfully optimistic, youthfully-charged concerto, a work which requires no special effort to enjoy. Whilst no-one would ever accuse it of being a master-piece, its craftsmanship is of the highest order, and there are a number of unusual features, including a craftily presented palindrome presented for solo bassoon towards the end. The piece shows masterly orchestration, is in five sections (exposition, development, theme and variations, reprise and coda) and utilises an archetypically romantic theme as its secondary material for maximum contrast with the stirring trumpet figure. There are literally dozens of pieces by Tcherepnin which are close stylistically to the second concerto, but perhaps the only cycle which is heard in public at all frequently today which can be mentioned in this context is the set of 11 Bagatelles, op.5.

Closely related to 'Message' is the Third Piano Concerto, op.48 of 1931/2, a work cast in two movements. Though this concerto is unquestionably 'difficult', angular, over-orchestrated and at times ferociously hard to put together with an orchestra without extra rehearsal time, it shows Tcherepnin's unique handling of rhythm and his own systematised answer to control without the conventions of tonality, most convincingly. For me the blackness, pessimism, ferocity and enormous rhythmic energy of this score more than compensates for its lack of structural balance, its lopsided ungainliness at times, and its most awkward co-ordination problems. There are flashes of awesome, terrifying power in the piece, moments of spine-tingling excitement, and passages of ominous stillness. Remarkable music which may be in the 'glorious failure' range of twentieth century composition, but which nonetheless cries out to be re-discovered.

Concerto no.4, op.78 was completed just after the War and is Tcherepnin's largest 'Oriental' work, literally over-spilling with folk material and pentatonic scale patterns in thirty minutes of lavish rich expansiveness. It is closely related in idiom to solo works like 'Five Concert Etudes', op.52 and 'Le Mode en vitrine', (showcase), op75 but is much more than post-Pucciniesque pastiche. On the contrary, the first movement of the concerto , subtitled 'Eastern Chamber dream' is a vast dramatic edifice complete with accompanying narrative: Woo Sung, legendary hero, visits a village in order to save the community from the dangers of a ferocious tiger. An arch structure is effortlessly constructed, utilising the whole colouristic gamut of a full symphony orchestra, whilst the pyrotechnics of the solo part make for much weightier , more artistically satisfying a challenge than that which is offered by the admittedly charming, if more superficial, so called 'Yellow River' Concerto.

Concerto Five op.96 (1963) and Concerto Six, op.99 (1965) are relatively close to each other in aesthetic, relating to later instrumental compositions such as the Second Sonata, op.94 (1961). Both concertos were written in Baech near Zurich, (indeed the finale of the Sixth uses the letters of this village as notes for a theme!) and show Tcherepnin at his most lucid, convincing and confident. But otherwise there are enormous differences between both pieces: no.5 is dark, introverted for large sections, black and concentrated whereas no.6 is far more expansive, openly virtuosic, extrovert and brimming-over with energy. Noteworthy in no.5 is the concentrated development constructed from a minor 2nd, which is subjected to a plethora of sophisticated rhythmic permutations and offshoots. The brevity of the slow movement (only fifty bars long) makes for disturbed, pessimistic listening, and is all the more remarkable for being derived entirely from material in the first movement. For the finale, intensity of purpose is sharpened in a movement which is essentially constructed from one theme only, albeit a theme which is subjected to an enormous range of rhythmically syncopated variants.

Concerto Six begins with an expansive Sonata form movement, a full scale Perpetuum mobile in which the soloist' semiquavers at first appear unstoppable. But the movement is especially remarkable for the extended percussion section utilised, and at its centre the remarkable quasi cadenza section for percussion only is wonderfully exciting. But for me one of the highlights of this last concerto, and indeed one of the great moments in all Tcherepnin, is the rarified, 'quietistic glow' of the slow movement. The sparse, extreme piano textures are accompanied by hushed and veiled orchestral sonorities in a piece which seems to leave worldly concerns far behind, as the composer appears to move towards a new found spirituality. Perhaps I am being over-critical in finding the finale rather ordinary after that, for this movement is certainly brilliant and convincingly structured, bring the cycle of concertos to a fittingly heroic conclusion.

Murray McLachlan