Giorgio Koukl, piano

This first volume of Alexander Tcherepnin’s extensive list of works for piano takes us from some of his earliest works as a precocious Russian teenager, through to significant and intensely expressive compositions. From the vitally youthful picture stories of the Bagatelles, through the remarkable Sonatas to the exploratory late Ascension, each work is a gold mine of astoundingly inventive and distinctively individual craftsmanship The program demonstrates Tcherepnin’s mastery of the miniature and the monumental, speaking to the heart from a basis in the Romantic tradition. Tcherepnin’s is a voice which stands comparison with Prokofiev and at times Rachmaninov, but the over-riding impression is of striking individuality and compelling inventiveness.



Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977)

The Russian-born pianist, conductor and composer Alexander Tcherepnin moved with his composer father to Tbilisi in 1918 and in 1921 to Paris. His subsequent career took him to China and Japan; then, to America.

Constantly travelling, he wore the sobriquet “Musical Citizen of the World”.

A lifelong pioneer in new composition techniques, Tcherepnin was also an enthusiastic internationalist whose fascination with folk idioms brought him through Eurasian culture to Far Eastern influences. Although

he remained fundamentally Russian in his writing, he devised a new synthetic scale and made use of the Chinese scale. Married to a Chinese pianist, he wrote six piano concertos and four symphonies, returning to Russian themes in his final Russian Sketches of 1971.


Giorgio Koukl is a pianist/ harpsichordist and composer based in Lugano, Switzerland. Born in Prague in 1953, and studied at the State Music School and Conservatory, before moving to Switzerland in 1968 and continuing his studies at the Conservatories of Zürich and Milan. While studying there he took part in master-classes of N. Magalov, J. Février, and S.Neuhaus, and with Rudolf Firkušný, friend and advocate of Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. Through Firkušný, Koukl fi rst encountered Martinu’s music, prompting him to search out his compatriot’s solo piano works. Since then he has developed these into an important part of his concert repertoire and is now considered as one of the world‘s leading interpreters of Martinu’s piano music, having recorded the composer’s complete solo piano music, piano concertos, and a disc of Martinu’s vocal music.

Giorgio Koukl’s complete recordings of Martinu’s piano music for Naxos have been critically acclaimed as “a delight” (Gramophone) and “estimable and important” (MusicWeb International). Tcherepnin belonged to the same Parisian group of composers as Martinu, and Koukl’s effortless technique and expertise with this fascinating repertoire make him a perfect advocate for this composer’s remarkable music.



“Koukl has the technical authority for these works. His playing gives off a sense of being at ease, with the ability to extend himself as needed.” – Barry Brenesal, Fanfare