To Russia with Love | Kostandin Tashko

To Russia with Love follows Kostandin Tashko through piano music by Medtner, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. Sonata Reminiscences is joined by The Nutcracker Suite in Pletnev’s transcription and Trois mouvements de Pétrouchka.

Formats and editions

• CD — CVLD332CD
• Hi-Res WAV file 88.2kHz · 24bit — CVLD332

Musicians

Kostandin Tashko — piano

Steinway & Sons D274, prepared and tuned by Silvano Zanta.

Recording and production

Original 88.2 kHz · 24-bit recording at Laboratorio Zanta, Camponogara, Italy, on 3 and 4 December 2020.

Production: Velut Luna
Executive producer: Marco Lincetto
Recording, mix and mastering: Marco Lincetto
Musical production and editing: Mattia Zanatta
Text: Myriam Guglielmo
Inside photograph: Marco Lincetto
Design and layout: L’Image

Track listing

Nikolaj Karlovi Medtner
01 - Sonata Reminiscences op.38 in A minor n.1 from Forgotten Melodies I, 15'56"

Pyotr Ilyich Tschaikovsky & Michail Vasil'evi Pletnëv
The Nutcracker Suite, 17'50"
02 - March, 1'59"
03 - Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, 2'09" 
04 - Tarantella, 1'22"
05 - Intermezzo, 4'13"
06 - Trépak (Russian Dance), 1'12"
07 - The Tea (Chinese Dance), 1'22"
08 - Pas de deux (Andante maestoso), 5'33"

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky
Trois mouvements de Pétrouchka, 17'40" 
09 - Danse russe, 2'50" 
10 - Chez Pétrouchka, 5'17"
11 - La semaine grasse, 9'33"

Tot. time: 51'32"

Testimonials

Kostandin Tashko    
 "... deep vision of the text, combined with great musical maturity. Very young, but already master of a very high level piano technique and a vast and important repertoire... "
Daniel Rivera, pianist (2020)
"..strong musical personality and talent clearly emerge from his artistic abilities...he never flaunts virtuosity for its own sake...he always subordinates it to a higher intellectual vision, which reflects a clear awareness of musical architecture."
Alessandro Taverna, pianist (2020)

Biography

Winner of numerous international competitions in Albania, Italy, Croatia, Great Britain, Macedonia, Kosovo, Switzerland-France, Slovenia, the Albanian pianist Kostandin Tashko has performed in important concert halls and festivals. His debut CD, on the KNS label, includes works by Liszt, Scriabin and Ravel. A student of the "J.Misja" High School in Tirana with Valbona Kasaj, he graduated with honours from the "Giuseppe Tartini" Conservatory of Music in Trieste under the guidance of Teresa Trevisan. Masterclasses with B.Lupo, A.Delle Vigne, R.Dalibaltayan, O.Gardon, D.Tomsic, R. Kinka, M.Miladinovic, V.Balzani, C.Elton, P.Gililov, N.Grubert.

Critical notes

Russia! Piano writing between composition, transcription and restitution. The path proposed by Kostandin Tashko in the name of the Russian musical tradition unfolds along a path that, although traced within the twentieth-century context, tends to look back nostalgically at a past with vaguely defined contours, between Medtner's dreamlike late romanticism, Tchaikovsky's fairy-tale and Stravinsky's ancestral. The undisputed protagonist is the piano, an instrument historically linked to compositional activity both as a starting point for the drafting of piano pieces entrusted to the performance of the composer himself, and as the recipient of transcriptions taken from orchestral pieces by the author or later performers.

Listen

Velut Luna