Description
Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov lives in New York, but it is still something of a gutsy move to embrace his new American identity so thoroughly. After all, the classical music market in the U.S. is small compared with that of even a medium-sized European country, but that is just the charm of My American Story — North (the “north” refers to North America, and a South American collection is said to be on the way). There is a certain wide-eyed quality to Trifonov’s exploration of American music here. He is not the first foreign classical musician to have admired jazzman Art Tatum, who opens the show with an especially spectacular treatment of I Cover the Waterfront, and certainly not the first to have recorded Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, where he is ably accompanied by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Seguin. What is impressive though, is that he delves outward from these. Trifonov nods to both the avant-garde, in Copland’s early Piano Variations, and to minimalism, in John Adams’ China Gate. Yet, he also includes a lovely film melody, a theme from Thomas Newman’s score for American Beauty, and this has achieved a measure of virality online. Trifonov also emphasizes the importance of U.S. film music in a second concerto commissioned from composer Mason Bates, especially for this project, an enjoyable, swashbuckling ride. He closes with a version of John Cage’s 4′ 33′ that is somewhat at odds with the work’s original conception as he intervenes with New York street sounds on a Manhattan walk, but this works well enough in the adventurous context. There are keyboard heroics here from this famed virtuoso, but there is also a spirit of curiosity that is much to be admired and enjoyed. This album is available in a vinyl version that includes two bonus tracks. ~ James Manheim
