Invitation
It is a pleasure to host Vyacheslav Gryaznov (known as Slava to his friends), a prominent Russian pianist, transcriber and composer for our first private concert of 2022.
100% OF THE DONATIONS WILL GO TO THE PIANIST. Please be generous.
Slava has performed to great acclaim throughout the U.S., Russia, Europe and Japan, including Carnegie Hall and the Berlin Philharmonie. He will give an intimate at-home performance this evening, with a selection of pieces from programs that he will perform publicly in Miami and Seattle later in January.
Slava studied at the Moscow State Conservatory for his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and earned the prestigious Artist Diploma from Yale School of Music. Slava signed with Schott Music since 2014, where his work is the publisher’s top ten best-selling piano editions.
For a taster, here is a video of Slava’s performance of La Valse as transcribed by himself.
The program
MOZART. 9 Variations on “Lison dormait” K. 264/315D
MAHLER. Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 (arr. for the left hand by V. Gryaznov)
LISZT. Rhapsodie Espagnole
Intermission
MONTEVERDI. Si dolce è’l tormentor (arr. V. Gryaznov)
BACH. Organ Fantasia in G Major, BWV 572 (arr. V. Gryaznov)
DEBUSSY. Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (arr. V. Gryaznov)
RAVEL. La Valse (arr. V. Gryaznov)
Music notes
MOZART. 9 Variations on “Lison dormait” K. 264/315D
The nine variations in C major for piano were written by Mozart in Paris in September 1778. They were based on an aria from the opera Julie by Nicolas-Alexandre Dezède.
MAHLER. Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 (arr. V. Gryaznov)
The Adagietto, the 4th movement of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, scored only for strings and harp, is one of Mahler’s most popular works. It served as a respite between the gripping and sometimes foreboding first three movements and the triumphant finale. It has the sustained sonic beauty of a poignant love song, evoking longing feelings of pain mixed with bliss.
Mahler’s limited instrumentation inspired Gryaznov to transcribe for the left hand only, “limiting” a pianist with additional challenges.
LISZT. Rhapsodie Espagnole
The “Spanish Rhapsody” was composed by Franz Liszt late in his life in 1858. The piece is suggestive of traditional music Liszt would have heard during his travels through the Iberian Peninsula in 1845. Full of dazzling colors and highly technically demanding, the piece requires a rapport with the piano and the Spain of Liszt’s imagination.
MONTEVERDI. Si dolce è’l tormentor (arr. V. Gryaznov)
Claudio Monteverdi is known as the father of opera and was a key transitional figure from Renaissance to Baroque music.
His solo madrigal “Si dolce e’l tormento” sets to music a poem that begins: “So sweet is the torment / That lies in my heart, / That I can live content / With unfeeling, infatuating beauty.”
Despite its hymn-like strophic form with multiple verses using the same music, the piece conveys a wide range of emotion capturing the contrary tensions of courtly love.
Gryaznov does not describe this as a true arrangement but a spontaneous impromptu based on Monterverdi’s theme, a journey of mysteriously fluctuating moods shuffled throughout, with more questions than answers.
BACH. Organ Fantasia in G Major, BWV 572 (arr. V. Gryaznov)
This piece dates from Bach’s “Weimar years” when the young composer’s reputation as an organist grew. The youthful vigor and digital dexterity of the opening movement transitions to the central choral section which features five voices. The rich harmonic sonority makes the Fantasia one of the grandest of Bach’s creations for organ.
The harmonies in the middle choral part captivated Gryaznov, who could see progressions with a clear path to the harmonic language of the late 19th and even 20th centuries. The variety of emotions possible to express on the piano, compared to a somewhat limited monumental organ interpretation, allowed Gryaznov to create unique moments of intimacy as well as the wide emotional landscape.
DEBUSSY. Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (arr. V. Gryaznov)
Known in English as “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” this piece is a symphonic poem for orchestra composed by Claude Debussy in 1894. It was inspired by the poem “L’après-midi d’un faune” by French symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé. This work marked Debussy’s formal rejection of German principles of composition and traditional harmony, especially a well-defined tonal center. The scoring blurs the fine lines of color instruments, with low winds playing in high registers and high instruments in low registers.
In this transcription, Gryaznov tried to liberate a pianist from the necessity to imitate an orchestra, which would risk merely being a pale shadow of the rich palette of orchestral color created by Debussy. The most important things to draw a performer’s attention are neither the timbres nor orchestral colors, but rather the nuances of the psychological states of that mythological faune whose complicated and contradictory passions are so amazingly human.
RAVEL. La Valse (arr. V. Gryaznov)
La Valse was intended to be the waltz to end all waltzes. Maurice Ravel had conceived it as a tribute to the Viennese waltzes of Johann Strauss II in 1906. But it didn’t begin to take shape until 1919 as a “choreographic poem” in fulfillment of a commission from Serge Diaghilev. In between its inception and completion, the world was rocked by the First World War.
The murky chords that open the piece coalesce into distinct waltz rhythms, then become kaleidoscope colors and disturbing non-functional chords, dissonances, and passing moments of polytonality. The various germs of melody and whirling rhythms accelerate to a critical mass, and the scene detonates at the conclusion.
The transformation of an elegant dance in the beginning into an incredible agony at the end fascinated Gryaznov. Ravel’s own arrangement for solo piano leaves numerous options from which the performer may choose, which is why almost every pianist creates some sort of a unique transcription for their own based on the composer’s version. Gryaznov could not resist this challenge. He tried to avoid any simplification of the complex polyphony of the orchestral score. A black pearl such as La Valse is worthy for the performer to die right on stage, surrounded by the dark energy and beauty of a dance rife with love, passion, and fire.
More about the artist
Vyacheslav Gryaznov is a Russian pianist, transcriber, and composer. He has performed to great acclaim throughout the U.S., Russia, Europe and Japan, including Carnegie Hall and the Berlin Philharmonie.
Gryaznov studied at the Moscow State Conservatory and earned the prestigious Artist Diploma from Yale School of Music. He signed with Schott Music in 2014, where his work has been among the publisher’s top ten best-selling piano editions.
You can find more of his recordings on YouTube and support him at patreon.com/slavagryaznov.