Pianist Daniil Trifonov returns to the music of Tchaikovsky on new disc

When pianist Daniil Trifonov returns to Symphony Center this winter, he will perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts Jan. 29-30 and Feb. 1, led by Essa-Pekka Salonen.

Trifonov’s latest disc, however, showcases the works of another 19th-century master, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The double-disc set, released Oct. 3 by Deutsche Grammophon, features some of the music that Tchaikovsky wrote for solo piano, and which reflects the composer’s more intimate side.

The Russian-born Trifonov rose to fame with a victory at the 14th International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2011. His latest recording, titled simply “Tchaikovsky,” explores themes of children and motherhood, youth and family. In addition to the composer’s early Piano Sonata in C-Sharp Minor, the Theme and Variations in F Major and the Children’s Album, Trifonov performs the concert suite from the ballet The Sleeping Beauty, arranged by Mikhail Pletnev in 1978.

Tchaikovsky wrote the Piano Sonata in C-Sharp Minor in 1865, during his final year at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, but the work was published only after his death. Trifonov calls it “a neglected masterpiece, one full of touches of genius [the composer repurposed its third movement for the Scherzo of his Symphony No. 1] and changing moods, from the lyrical main theme of the Andante to the youthful fire and exuberance elsewhere in the sonata.”

Trifonov, who was the CSO’s Artist-in-Residence for 2024/25, discovered the Theme and Variations in F Major after listening to a recording made during the inaugural Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958 by the contest’s eventual winner, the American-born Van Cliburn. Originally conceived as a finale to the Six Morceaux for Solo Piano, Op. 19, of 1873, the segment now often is heard as a stand-alone piece. With affinities to the pianism of Schumann, the simple theme and its 12 variations form a satisfying whole, while offering moments of grace, playfulness and brilliance.

Schumann inspired Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album, written in 1878 to emulate the former’s collections for young pianists and thus enrich the repertoire. There is darkness as well as light in this set of 24 pieces, perhaps reflecting the fact that at age 14 Tchaikovsky saw his happy childhood come to an abrupt end with the death of his mother. Together with the sonata and Thème original et variations, it offers a glimpse of what Trifonov sees as a “private dimension to Tchaikovsky — a spirit conditioned by memories of youth and family”; for both composer and pianist, it stands as an homage to mothers and maternal love.

The album ends with the suite from The Sleeping Beauty realized in 1978 by the then 21‑year-old pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev. That same year, Pletnev — like Van Cliburn 20 years earlier and Trifonov 33 years later — won the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Calling the suite “a masterful piano work in its own right,” Trifonov praises the organic manner in which Pletnev weaves together music from different parts of the ballet score.

Also on the CSO program with Trifonov is Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 (Romantic).