Daniil Trifonov Presents His Highly Anticipated Tchaikovsky Album
Trifonov explores the composer’s music for solo piano, from the rarely performed
Piano Sonata op. 80 to the Theme and Variations op.19/6 and Children’s Album
Out on 3 October 2025, the new album ends with his rendition of
Mikhail Pletnev’s colourful Concert Suite from the Ballet “The Sleeping Beauty”
“One of the most striking qualities of [Trifonov’s] artistry lies in his readiness
to explore lesser-known corners of the piano repertoire”
Seen and Heard International
In June 2011, Daniil Trifonov shot to fame with a spectacular victory at the 14th International Tchaikovsky Competition. Now the pianist is devoting an entire double album to some of the music Tchaikovsky wrote for solo piano. Revealing the composer’s more intimate, private side, TCHAIKOVSKY is threaded through with themes of childhood and mothers, youth and family. In addition to the early Piano Sonata in C sharp minor, the Theme and Variations in F major and Children’s Album, Trifonov has recorded the Concert Suite from the Ballet “The Sleeping Beauty” created by a young Mikhail Pletnev in 1978.
TCHAIKOVSKY will be released by Deutsche Grammophon digitally and on 2 CDs on 3 October 2025. The Andante from Pletnev’s suite will be issued for streaming/download on 25 July, followed by “Sweet Dreams” (Children’s Album) on 22 August and “Silver Fairy” (The Sleeping Beauty) on 12 September. The two Sleeping Beauty tracks will be accompanied by e-videos from a performance filmed earlier this season at Barcelona’s historic Palau de la Música Catalana. The full recital, in which the Tchaikovsky Sonata and The Sleeping Beauty suite frame works by Chopin and Barber, is available to stream on STAGE+.
Tchaikovsky wrote the Piano Sonata in C sharp minor in 1865, during his final year at the St Petersburg Conservatory, but the work was only published after his death. It is, says Trifonov, a neglected masterpiece, one full of touches of genius (the composer repurposed its third movement for the Scherzo of his Symphony No. 1) and changing moods, from the lyrical main theme of the Andante to the youthful fire and exuberance elsewhere in the sonata.
Trifonov discovered the Thème original et variations in F major via a recording made during the inaugural Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958 by its eventual winner, the 23-year-old Van Cliburn. Originally conceived as a finale to the Six Morceaux for solo piano op. 19 of 1873, this is now often heard as a standalone piece. With affinities to the pianism of Schumann, the simple theme and its 12 variations form a satisfying whole, offering moments of grace, playfulness and brilliance.
Schumann was unquestionably the inspiration behind Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album, written in 1878 to emulate the former’s collections for young pianists and thus enrich the repertoire. There is darkness as well as light in this set of 24 pieces, perhaps reflecting the fact that Tchaikovsky’s happy childhood had come to an abrupt end with the death of his mother when he was just 14. Together with the Sonata and Thème original et variations, it offers a glimpse of what Trifonov sees as a “private dimension to Tchaikovsky – a spirit conditioned by memories of youth and family” and, for both composer and pianist, stands as a kind of homage to mothers and maternal love.
The album ends with the suite from The Sleeping Beauty realised in 1978 by the then 21‑year-old pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev. That same year, Pletnev – like Van Cliburn 20 years earlier and Trifonov 33 years later – won the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Calling the suite “a masterful piano work in its own right”, Trifonov praises the organic manner in which Pletnev weaves together music from different parts of the ballet score.
Daniil Trifonov presents his Tchaikovsky-based recital again at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens (19 July), and at the Verbier, Menuhin and Salzburg Festivals (23/27/31 July). He rounds off the summer with Rachmaninoff’s Second and Third Piano Concertos at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Daniel Harding (19/21 August).
