Alexander Tcherepnin
Encyclopedia
Alexander Nikolayevich Tcherepnin (21 January 1899 – 29 September 1977) was a Russia
n-born composer
and pianist
. His father, Nikolai Tcherepnin
(pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
) and his son, Ivan Tcherepnin
were also composers, as are two of his grandsons, Sergei and Stefan. His son Serge
was involved in the roots of electronic music and instruments. His mother was a member of the artistic Benois family
, a niece of Alexandre Benois
.
, Russia, and played the piano and composed prolifically from a very early age. He was stimulated in this activity by the atmosphere at home, which--thanks to his family's Benois-Diaghilev connection--was a meeting place for many well-known musicians and artists of the day. By the time he began formal theory and composition studies in his late teens, he had already composed hundreds of pieces, including more than a dozen piano sonatas. Among his teachers in Russia were composer Victor Belyayev (pupil of Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Glazunov
), who prepared Tcherepnin for St. Petersburg Conservatory; Leocadia Kashperova (renowned pianist, protégée of Anton Rubinstein
); and his professor at the Conservatory Nikolay Sokolov (pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
). Notably at that time Tcherepnin’s mentor was famous musicologist Alexander Ossovsky
, who also was a friend of his father
. His works were influenced by composer Alexander Spendiarov
.
After the 1917 Russian Revolution
, the family fled St. Petersburg and settled for some time in Tbilisi
, Georgia
. In young Tcherepnin's luggage were some two hundred short piano pieces, quite a number of which eventually reached print (notably in his Bagatelles, Op. 5). In Tbilisi he continued his studies at the conservatory, gave concerts as both pianist and conductor and wrote music for the Kamerny Theater (Palmer 1980, 18:637; Korabelnikova 2008, pp. 16-40). Because of the increasingly hostile political environment in Tbilisi after Georgia was sovietized
, the Tcherepnins chose to leave Russia permanently in 1921. They settled in Paris
, where Alexander completed his studies with Vidal and Isidor Philipp
, who was the head of the piano department at the Paris Conservatory, and became associated with a group of composers that included Bohuslav Martinů
, Marcel Mihalovici
and Conrad Beck
. Philipp secured the publication of several groups of short piano pieces that Tcherepnin had composed in Russia. From Paris Tcherepnin launched an international career as a pianist and composer. In 1925 he won the Schott Prize with his Concerto da Camera, Op. 33. He began yearly visits to the United States
in 1926 and later went to the Far East, making several extended visits to China and Japan between 1934 and 1937. He promoted composers in Japan
(Akira Ifukube
, Bunya Koh
, and others) and China
(He Lüting
and others), even founding his own publishing house in Tokyo for the purpose. While in China, he met the young Chinese pianist Lee Hsien Ming, and the two later married in Europe. They had three sons together: Peter, Serge
and Ivan
.
During World War II
, he lived in France. The war virtually stopped his musical activities. The immediate postwar period, however, brought a resurgence of creative energies; the result was a number of important works, beginning with Symphony No. 2 (composed 1947, not orchestrated until 1951). In 1948, he went to the United States
, settling in Chicago in 1950 and in 1958 acquiring United States citizenship. He and his wife taught at DePaul University
in Chicago, where the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
premiered his second symphony with Rafael Kubelík
conducting. His students there included Phillip Ramey
, Robert Muczynski
, Gloria Coates
, and John Downey
. In 1957, he completed two major American orchestral commissions: the Divertimento, Op. 90 (for Fritz Reiner
and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
) and his Symphony No. 4, Op. 91 (for Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra
). In 1964 he moved to New York and subsequently divided his time between the United States and Europe. He died in Paris
in 1977 (Palmer, 18:637).
The Singapore Symphony Orchestra
has recorded his first-ever complete symphony cycle, conducted by Lan Shui. In 2008, these recordings were reissued together with Singapore Symphony performances of his six piano concertos (Noriko Ogawa, pianist), along with the Symphonic Prayer, Op. 93, Magna Mater, Op. 41 and other orchestral works.
He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron
, an international professional music fraternity.
s, four symphonies
, a divertimento (which is a symphony in all but name), six piano concerto
s, works for ballet
, choral music, alto saxophone solo, and a large amount of solo piano music. His Symphony No. 1 (1927) is remarkable for including the first symphonic movement ever written completely for unpitched percussion (Benjamin Folkman, cited in Wender 1999, 6). One of two symphonies left incomplete at his death would have been for percussion alone (Arias 2001). Tcherepnin invented his own harmonic languages. The most famous of his synthetic scales, derived by combining minor and major hexachord
s, has nine notes and consists of three conjunct semitone-tone-semitone tetrachords. This came to be known as the "Tcherepnin scale" (Slonimsky 1968, 19–20), and may be classified with Messiaen's modes of limited transposition
.
He also worked with pentatonic scale
s, old Russian modal
tunes, Georgian
harmonies, and a nine-note "chromatic perfect" scale built upon half-step and step-and-a-half intervals. Tcherepnin discussed these techniques in his monograph "Basic Elements of My Musical Language" (Korabelnikova, Appendix 2, pp. 191–209, see also external links).
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n-born composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
. His father, Nikolai Tcherepnin
Nikolai Tcherepnin
Nikolai Nikolayevich Tcherepnin was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. He was born in Saint Petersburg and studied under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory...
(pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
) and his son, Ivan Tcherepnin
Ivan Tcherepnin
Ivan Tcherepnin was an experimental, then later modernist/postmodernist, composer. He was born into a highly musical family, his father and grandfather, Alexander and Nikolai, being distinguished Russian composers, and his mother Ming a well-known pianist...
were also composers, as are two of his grandsons, Sergei and Stefan. His son Serge
Serge Tcherepnin
Serge Tcherepnin is an American composer and electronic-instrument builder of Russian-Chinese origin. He created the Serge Modular synthesizer.-Biography:...
was involved in the roots of electronic music and instruments. His mother was a member of the artistic Benois family
Benois family
The Benois family was a family of prominent 19th and 20th Century Russian artists, musicians, and architects, descended from French confectioner Louis Jules Benois, who came to Russia in 1794 after the French Revolution.-Prominent family members:...
, a niece of Alexandre Benois
Alexandre Benois
Alexandre Nikolayevich Benois , an influential artist, art critic, historian, preservationist, and founding member of Mir iskusstva , an art movement and magazine...
.
Biography
He was born in Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, Russia, and played the piano and composed prolifically from a very early age. He was stimulated in this activity by the atmosphere at home, which--thanks to his family's Benois-Diaghilev connection--was a meeting place for many well-known musicians and artists of the day. By the time he began formal theory and composition studies in his late teens, he had already composed hundreds of pieces, including more than a dozen piano sonatas. Among his teachers in Russia were composer Victor Belyayev (pupil of Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...
), who prepared Tcherepnin for St. Petersburg Conservatory; Leocadia Kashperova (renowned pianist, protégée of Anton Rubinstein
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
); and his professor at the Conservatory Nikolay Sokolov (pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
). Notably at that time Tcherepnin’s mentor was famous musicologist Alexander Ossovsky
Alexander Ossovsky
Alexander Vyacheslavovich Ossovsky , 1871 –July 31, 1957) was a renowned Russian musical writer, critic and musicologist, professor at Saint Petersburg Conservatory, pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and friend of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Siloti and Nikolai...
, who also was a friend of his father
Nikolai Tcherepnin
Nikolai Nikolayevich Tcherepnin was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. He was born in Saint Petersburg and studied under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory...
. His works were influenced by composer Alexander Spendiarov
Alexander Spendiaryan
Alexander Spendiaryan was an Armenian music composer, conductor, founder of Armenian national symphonic music and one of the patriarchs of Armenian classical music. His compositions include the opera Almast and the Yerevan Etudes among others...
.
After the 1917 Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, the family fled St. Petersburg and settled for some time in Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
, Georgia
Democratic Republic of Georgia
The Democratic Republic of Georgia , 1918–1921, was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Georgia.The DRG was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917...
. In young Tcherepnin's luggage were some two hundred short piano pieces, quite a number of which eventually reached print (notably in his Bagatelles, Op. 5). In Tbilisi he continued his studies at the conservatory, gave concerts as both pianist and conductor and wrote music for the Kamerny Theater (Palmer 1980, 18:637; Korabelnikova 2008, pp. 16-40). Because of the increasingly hostile political environment in Tbilisi after Georgia was sovietized
Red Army invasion of Georgia
The Red Army invasion of Georgia also known as the Soviet–Georgian War or the Soviet invasion of Georgia was a military campaign by the Soviet Russian Red Army against the Democratic Republic of Georgia aimed at overthrowing the Social-Democratic government and installing the Bolshevik regime...
, the Tcherepnins chose to leave Russia permanently in 1921. They settled in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where Alexander completed his studies with Vidal and Isidor Philipp
Isidor Philipp
Isidor Philipp was a French pianist, composer, and distinguished pedagogue of Hungarian descent. He was born in Budapest and died in Paris.-Biography:...
, who was the head of the piano department at the Paris Conservatory, and became associated with a group of composers that included Bohuslav Martinů
Bohuslav Martinu
Bohuslav Martinů was a prolific Czech composer of modern classical music. He was of Czech and Rumanian ancestry. Martinů wrote six symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. Martinů became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic...
, Marcel Mihalovici
Marcel Mihalovici
Marcel Mihalovici was a French composer born in Romania. He was discovered by George Enescu in Bucharest. He moved to Paris in 1919 to study under Vincent d'Indy...
and Conrad Beck
Conrad Beck
Conrad Beck was a Swiss composer.Beck was the son of a pastor. His stay in Paris between 1924 and 1933 proved crucial to his artistic development, where he studied with Jacques Ibert and also made contact with Arthur Honegger, Nadia Boulanger, and Albert Roussel...
. Philipp secured the publication of several groups of short piano pieces that Tcherepnin had composed in Russia. From Paris Tcherepnin launched an international career as a pianist and composer. In 1925 he won the Schott Prize with his Concerto da Camera, Op. 33. He began yearly visits to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1926 and later went to the Far East, making several extended visits to China and Japan between 1934 and 1937. He promoted composers in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
(Akira Ifukube
Akira Ifukube
was a Japanese composer of classical music and film scores, perhaps best known for his work on the soundtracks of the Godzilla movies by Toho.-Biography:...
, Bunya Koh
Jiang Wen-Ye
Jiang Wen-Ye was a Taiwanese composer, active mainly in Japan and later in China. While known in the West by his Chinese name, the three Chinese characters that form his name are pronounced "Kō Bunya" in Japanese...
, and others) and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
(He Lüting
He Lüting
He Luting was a Chinese composer of the early 20th century...
and others), even founding his own publishing house in Tokyo for the purpose. While in China, he met the young Chinese pianist Lee Hsien Ming, and the two later married in Europe. They had three sons together: Peter, Serge
Serge Tcherepnin
Serge Tcherepnin is an American composer and electronic-instrument builder of Russian-Chinese origin. He created the Serge Modular synthesizer.-Biography:...
and Ivan
Ivan Tcherepnin
Ivan Tcherepnin was an experimental, then later modernist/postmodernist, composer. He was born into a highly musical family, his father and grandfather, Alexander and Nikolai, being distinguished Russian composers, and his mother Ming a well-known pianist...
.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he lived in France. The war virtually stopped his musical activities. The immediate postwar period, however, brought a resurgence of creative energies; the result was a number of important works, beginning with Symphony No. 2 (composed 1947, not orchestrated until 1951). In 1948, he went to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, settling in Chicago in 1950 and in 1958 acquiring United States citizenship. He and his wife taught at DePaul University
DePaul University
DePaul University is a private institution of higher education and research in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul...
in Chicago, where the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
premiered his second symphony with Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Jeroným Kubelík was a Czech conductor and composer.-Early life:Kubelík was born in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, today's Czech Republic. He was the sixth child of the Bohemian violinist Jan Kubelík, whom the younger Kubelík described as "a kind of god to me." His mother was a Hungarian...
conducting. His students there included Phillip Ramey
Phillip Ramey
Phillip Ramey is an American composer, pianist, and writer on music.He studied composition with the Russian-born composer Alexander Tcherepnin from 1959 to 1962, first at the International Academy of Music in Nice, France, then at DePaul University in Chicago...
, Robert Muczynski
Robert Muczynski
Robert Muczynski was a contemporary American composer. He was born in Chicago, Illinois. Muczynski studied composition with Alexander Tcherepnin at DePaul University in the late 1940s...
, Gloria Coates
Gloria Coates
Gloria Coates is an American composer who has moved to, and has subsequently been living in Munich, Germany since 1969...
, and John Downey
John W. Downey
John W. Downey was a contemporary classical composer, conductor, pianist and educator. His works have been performed extensively in Western and Eastern Europe, South America, Australia, Africa, the Middle East, Israel, Asia, Mexico and Canada, as well as throughout the United States.- Biography...
. In 1957, he completed two major American orchestral commissions: the Divertimento, Op. 90 (for Fritz Reiner
Fritz Reiner
Frederick Martin “Fritz” Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.-Biography:...
and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
) and his Symphony No. 4, Op. 91 (for Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
). In 1964 he moved to New York and subsequently divided his time between the United States and Europe. He died in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1977 (Palmer, 18:637).
The Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
The Singapore Symphony Orchestra is a 96 members professional symphony orchestra. Its main performing venue is the Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore although it has also toured widely in Asia, Europe and the United States...
has recorded his first-ever complete symphony cycle, conducted by Lan Shui. In 2008, these recordings were reissued together with Singapore Symphony performances of his six piano concertos (Noriko Ogawa, pianist), along with the Symphonic Prayer, Op. 93, Magna Mater, Op. 41 and other orchestral works.
He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron
Delta Omicron
Delta Omicron is a co-ed international professional music honors fraternity whose mission is to promote and support excellence in music and musicianship.-History:...
, an international professional music fraternity.
Style and techniques
His early works were fairly original and some of his pieces have enduring popularity. His output includes three operaOpera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s, four symphonies
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
, a divertimento (which is a symphony in all but name), six piano concerto
Piano concerto
A piano concerto is a concerto written for piano and orchestra.See also harpsichord concerto; some of these works are occasionally played on piano...
s, works for ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
, choral music, alto saxophone solo, and a large amount of solo piano music. His Symphony No. 1 (1927) is remarkable for including the first symphonic movement ever written completely for unpitched percussion (Benjamin Folkman, cited in Wender 1999, 6). One of two symphonies left incomplete at his death would have been for percussion alone (Arias 2001). Tcherepnin invented his own harmonic languages. The most famous of his synthetic scales, derived by combining minor and major hexachord
Hexachord
In music, a hexachord is a collection of six pitch classes including six-note segments of a scale or tone row. The term was adopted in the Middle Ages and adapted in the twentieth-century in Milton Babbitt's serial theory.-Middle Ages:...
s, has nine notes and consists of three conjunct semitone-tone-semitone tetrachords. This came to be known as the "Tcherepnin scale" (Slonimsky 1968, 19–20), and may be classified with Messiaen's modes of limited transposition
Modes of limited transposition
Modes of limited transposition are musical modes or scales that fulfill specific criteria relating to their symmetry and the repetition of their interval groups...
.
He also worked with pentatonic scale
Pentatonic scale
A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave in contrast to a heptatonic scale such as the major scale and minor scale...
s, old Russian modal
Musical mode
In the theory of Western music since the ninth century, mode generally refers to a type of scale. This usage, still the most common in recent years, reflects a tradition dating to the middle ages, itself inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music.The word encompasses several additional...
tunes, Georgian
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
harmonies, and a nine-note "chromatic perfect" scale built upon half-step and step-and-a-half intervals. Tcherepnin discussed these techniques in his monograph "Basic Elements of My Musical Language" (Korabelnikova, Appendix 2, pp. 191–209, see also external links).
External links
- Biography of Alexander Tcherepnin - The Tcherepnin Society
- Alexander Tcherepnin: Basic Elements of My Musical Language - The Tcherepnin Society
- Alexander Tcherepnin: The Saga of a Russian Emigré Composer