The classical music world has had its share of dynasties. There are the Bachs. There are the Bendas. There are the Strausses.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll have examples of music from a comparatively recent line of musicians, that can be traced to the 1870s and the birth of Nikolai Tcherepnin. Tcherepnin, whose father was a strict disciplinarian who demanded he study law, became a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov. He himself became a teacher, took a position at the St. Petersburg Conservatory (later becoming its principal), conducted at the Russian Musical Society, the Moscow Philharmonic, and the Mariinsky Theatre, and led the debut performance of Serge Diaghilev’s famed Ballets Russes, beginning a five year association with the company.
In 1918, he took up over the directorship of the National Conservatory of Tbilisi, the capitol of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. With the Bolshevik takeover of Georgia in 1921, Tcherepnin moved to Paris, where he lived the remainder of his life. There, he conducted, performed as pianist, and founded the Russian Conservatory. He became president of the Belyayev publishing house, a position he maintained until his death in 1945.
In 1909, he wrote a symphonic poem, “The Enchanted Kingdom,” a work based upon the same fairy tale that inspired the ballet “The Firebird.” (Tcherepnin is said to have been an early contender to write the music for “The Firebird,” after Anatoly Liadov bowed out and before Igor Stravinsky was granted the commission.)
On top of his artistic achievements, Tcherepnin was the progenitor of a line of musicians that extends down to the present day.
We’ll hear the Symphony No. 3 by his son, Alexander Tcherepnin, whose own path led him from Russia to Paris to China (his wife was the Chinese pianist Lee Hsien Ming) to DePaul University in Chicago.
Alexander’s sons, Serge and Ivan, became fascinated with electronics. Ivan studied with Leon Kirchner, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Pierre Boulez. In 1972, he became director of the Harvard University Electronic Music Studio, where he remained until his death in 1998.
Ivan’s early music was experimental in nature. He gradually developed a tendency toward modernism and postmodernism. We’ll listen to his “Concerto for Two Continents” – the continents in question being North America and Asia, lands with which Ivan, born to Russian and Chinese parents and raised in the United States, felt a deeply personal connection. The concerto alludes to a number of familiar Russian and American folk and popular melodies. It also employs a judicious amount of electronics, making for some otherworldly effects.
In case you’re curious, the Tcherepnin dynasty continues to flourish with its fourth generation of composers – Nikolai’s great grandsons, Sergei and Stefan – but tonight we only have time for three! Join me for “Tcherepnin Troika,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
PHOTOS: (top) Alexander Tcherepnin and Lee Hsien Ming with their sons, Ivan and Serge; (bottom left) paterfamilias Nikolai Tcherepnin; and Ivan and Alexander at the piano
