Artistry and creativity. In his astounding West Coast debut with Steinway Society in 2016, Vyacheslav Gryaznov thrilled our audience and generously played two encores. Since then his international fame has continued to grow through his appearance at prestigious venues including Berlin Philharmonie and Carnegie Hall.

His mastery is highly acclaimed, as evidenced by numerous awards in international competitions. Among his Firsts/Grands: Moscow’s Rubinstein Competition, Italy’s “To the Memory of Rachmaninov” Competition and New York Concert Artists Worldwide Debut Audition.

He is on the faculty of the Moscow Conservatory and is a visiting professor of piano at Japan’s Kurashiki Sakuyo University of Science and Arts. In 2016 he accepted Yale University’s invitation to fulfill the Artist Diploma program.

His artistry is matched by his creativity, shown in his popular transcriptions for piano. His work is published by Schott Music and is among the “Top Ten” in their sales of international sheet music and he has a growing reputation for his transcriptions and arrangements. More than 30 of his concert arrangements and transcriptions are heard and played worldwide, performed by major orchestras including the Moscow State Symphony, and chosen for prestigious international music contests including Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition.

Vyacheslav Gryaznov will also be at an in-home salon fundraiser on Saturday, February 9. Reserve your spot now.

1. F-sharp minor (Largo)
2. B-flat major (Maestoso)
3. D minor (Tempo di minuetto)
4. D major (Andante cantabile)
5. G minor (Alla marcia)
6. E-flat major (Andante)
7. C minor (Allegro)
8. A-flat major (Allegro vivace)
9. E-flat minor (Presto)
10. G-flat major (Largo)

1. B-flat minor (Andantino)
2. E-flat minor (Allegretto)
3. B minor (Andante cantabile)
4. E minor (Presto)
5. D-flat major (Adagio sostenuto)
6. C major (Maestoso)

Rachmaninoff published his Ten Preludes, Op. 23 in 1904, having written them between 1901 and 1903 during the first flowering of his compositional maturity. Despite the successful premiere of his first opera Aleko, for which he had won the Great Gold Medal at the Moscow Conservatory when he was 19, Rachmaninoff fell into a prolonged depression and creative slump following the disastrous 1897 premiere of his First Symphony. Only after undergoing psychotherapy could he compose again in earnest, completing his Second Piano Concerto, one of his most enduring and beloved works, in 1901. His compositions from this period display a newfound distinctiveness of style, harmonic complexity, and mastery of form. While most of Rachmaninoff’s works of these years are in large-scale symphonic and operatic forms, the preludes of Op. 23 revisit the smaller Romantic character pieces of his youth, but with greater assuredness and originality. Like Bach, Chopin, Alkan, and Scriabin before him, Rachmaninoff ultimately composed 24 preludes in each of the major and minor keys (Bach in fact had done so twice). Rachmaninoff’s preludes are most clearly indebted to Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Op. 28, but are generally longer and more complex than those of Chopin, and exhibit an unmistakably Russian ethos, pride, and nostalgia.

The Op. 23 preludes alternate between minor and major keys. The first is a melancholy aria in F-sharp minor accompanied by murmuring sixteenths; it gradually builds to a climax before subsiding again into the shadows. The second prelude, in a thunderous B-flat far removed from the first in tempo and mood, is replete with virtuosic leaps, daunting left-hand arpeggiations, and death-defying octaves. The third prelude, marked Tempo di minuetto, is perhaps a nostalgic look back at Baroque dance suites, but with a tinge of sadness. A Chopinesque D-major nocturne, which sounds as if it were written for three hands, follows; its irresistible melody betrays the influence of Tchaikovsky and of Russian folk song. Next is a favorite of pianists and audiences alike, the revolutionary and martial G-minor prelude, which features a gorgeously lyrical contrasting central section. Following this perhaps most well-known work of the set is the lyrical sixth prelude, an Andante in E-flat whose joyful and rising operatic melody is accompanied by flowing sixteenths. The seventh prelude, with its sweeping arpeggios and turbulent passagework, recalls the composer’s Second Piano Concerto in both key and pianistic figurations. A work of surprisingly good humor for the melancholy composer follows, a study in A-flat for the right hand whose figuration is somewhat reminiscent of Schumann. The set’s penultimate work is a virtuosic E-flat minor etude that recalls Chopin’s double-note studies in sixths and thirds. The last piece returns to the tonality of the opening prelude (now in G-flat, the enharmonic parallel major key) in a work of unsurpassed beauty, its tender melody intricately interwoven in counterpoint, a fitting capstone to the set.

Rachmaninoff’s Six moments musicaux, Op. 16, the title a borrowing from Schubert’s identically named set of 1828, were composed in haste during the late fall of 1896 when the composer found himself short of funds. Despite their originating more from necessity than inspiration, the works display the hallmarks of the more mature Rachmaninoff in their inspired melodies, striking harmonies, and virtuosic figuration.

The first piece, the longest of the set, is a dark and syncopated nocturne in B-flat minor whose middle section features an unusual 7/4 meter and a filigree-like cadenza that precedes a highly figured return of the opening theme. Throughout the following dark Allegretto, which Rachmaninoff revised and recorded in 1940, an impassioned and chromatic melody in octaves is set against a restless accompaniment of turbulent sixteenths that cease only with the terse and enigmatic final chords. The melancholy mood continues in the third piece, a brooding work incorporating funeral-march rhythms, a melody almost entirely in thirds and sixths, and highly expressive ninth and eleventh chords. Number four, a brilliant E-minor Presto showpiece whose virtuosic figurations continue unabated, concludes with an assertive quadruple fortissimo. The fifth piece is a nocturne reminiscent of Chopin, its calm reflected in an undulating, barcarolle-like bass in triplets. The sixth piece, a vigorous and demanding Maestoso whose predominantly stepwise melody in unison octaves is accompanied by bravura passagework in thirty-second notes in both hands, concludes the set with a C-major quadruple-fortissimo affirmation.