Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: "Song of India" from the opera "Sadko" (arr. for piano by A. Tcherepnin)

Performed by Christian Dillig (piano); www.christiandillig.com

This arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov's famous aria Chanson d'Indoue (Song of India) from his opera Sadko is presumably available for the first time as a recording. It was made by the then still very young composer and pianist Alexander Tcherepnin (1899 - 1977) - at the latest in 1920, for in that year it appeared in the selection volume Russian Composers, in which the German musicologist and composer Oskar Riesemann attempted to present a representative cross-section of lesser-known Russian piano compositions to an interested German audience. Riesemann commented: "Perhaps nowhere has the legacy of the great piano composers Schumann, Chopin, Liszt - in a purely pianistic sense been so carefully cultivated, prepared and further trained as precisely in Petersburg and Moscow." Among these compositions is one by Nikolai Amani ("Orientale“    • Nikolai Amani: Orientale op. 7,2 - an...  , a student of Rimsky-Korsakov, whose forgotten but worthwhile piano works I would like to make a little better known on my Youtube channel and by whom I have already recorded some works (   • The complete Album for the Young of N...  )

The Chanson d'Indoue is available today in many arrangements in different instrumentations. It is one of the works that can be heard in different tempos. Rimsky-Korskov himself labeled the song Andantino and gave a taut 84 beats per minute. So he obviously envisioned it more upbeat than many musicians perform the work. Singers in particular take more time to sing out the semiquavers than when the work is performed purely instrumentally. Even if the very slow recordings sometimes sound convincing, it seems to me that the broad singing out of the semiquavers sometimes loses the character of the oriental melisma, the idea that Rimsky-Korsakoff had in mind here.

Pieces from the amazing Anthology "Russian Composers" (1920) of the German musicologist Oscar von Riesemann, which I have already put on YouTube:
1. Fjodor Akimenko: Chant d’Automne op. 16 No. 1    • Fjodor Akimenko: Chant d'automne op. ...  
2. Nikolai Artchiboucheff : Prélude op. 18 No. 1    • Nikolai Artsybushev: Prelude op. 18 N...  
3. Nikolai Amani: Orientale op. 7 No. 2    • Nikolai Amani: Orientale op. 7,2 - an...  
4. Semyon Barmotine: Berceuse op. 5 No. 3    • Semyon Barmotin: Berceuse op. 5 No. 3...  
5. Felix Blumenfeld: Krakowiak op. 23 No. 1www.youtube.com/watch?v=86RWZGSEO5c
8. Anatole Liadow: Une Tabatière à Musique (The Music Box). Valse-Bandinage
   • Anatoly Lyadov: The Music Box op. 32 ...  
9. Modest Mussorgsky: Intermezzo in modo classico    • Modest Mussorgsky: Intermezzo in modo...  
10. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakow: Song of India from the opera Sadko (arr. by Alexander Tcherepnin)    • Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: "Song of Ind...  
12. Nikolay Shcherbachyov: Le Mezzetin amoureux (Sérénade amoureux) op. 8 Nr. 5
   • Nikolaj Shcherbachyov: Le Mezzetin am...  

I have put together a playlist with titles from best-of editions of Russian piano music and would like to present more pieces from such editions in the future:
   • Best-of editions and anthologies of R...