Daniil Trifonov: A Story of the States

In terms of world-renowned pianists, Daniil Trifonov is part of the crème de la crème. In 2010 and 2011, the classical musical world went wild for the Russian virtuoso, who, at barely 20 years old, won some of the world’s most prestigious prizes. He was awarded third place at the Chopin competition in Warsaw, and first place at both the Arthur Rubinstein competition in Tel Aviv and the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, all within the span of a few short weeks. He then went on to tour the world, putting on recitals and collaborating with some of classical music’s most well-known figures. His mentors and fans include the likes of Martha Argerich, Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Alfred Brendel, and in 2013 he ended up signing an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon.

Daniil Trifonov grew up in Russia, surrounded by the music considered essential to any pianist’s repertoire. Naturally, his first recordings focused on Romantic Russian and European composers. With the live recording of his Carnegie Recital (2013), followed in 2015 by his first studio album, Rachmaninov Variations, Trifonov raised the bar in his field. He then released a number of albums dedicated to great composers like Rachmaninov, Tchaïkovsky, Scriabin, Chopin and Liszt. In 2021, he fully immersed himself in the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and his son, with the album BACH: The Art of Life.

Although, his new project is different. My American Story reveals a more personal side to the artist, and seems to point to his new approach to music. In two parts, North and South, Daniil Trifonov revisits his journeys throughout the Americas. The first part, dedicated to North America, brings together a selection of deeply personal pieces: “North and South America are two enormous continents, and so much beautiful music has been written about each of them. The first part, North is a broad overview of my experiences in the United States. In the future, I plan to release the second part, South – my wife is Dominican, so I couldn’t possibly overlook the music of Latin America. Obviously, the program is piano-focused. I’ve left out things like excerpts from orchestra scores, because I wanted to highlight the piano itself, and how it’s used across different genres. The album encompasses different genres and styles: minimalism, soundtracks, etc…it’s a sort of exploration of these two regions of the world, through their music“.

First Steps in America

Daniil Trifonov left Russia in 2009 in order to study in the United States under Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music. At that time he was preparing for the international competitions he would later go on to win. This was his first brush with U.S. culture and its rich musical traditions. Today, Trifonov reminisces: “In Cleveland, I discovered an enormous amount of different musical styles from both North and South America that I’d never heard before. Art Tatum’s music, for example. He was born near Cleveland and began his career there; it’s one of the city’s pride and glories. Luck so had it that I’d been preparing for the Chopin competition. Art Tatum has a kind of playing that’s free, fluid…there’s a lot to learn from it, just like with Horowitz. He and Tatum share that extreme fluidity that meshes so well with Chopin. There’s even a recording of Art Tatum playing a Chopin waltz. He improvises jazz over it!“

From classical repertoire to jazz and swing, as well as minimalism and famous film music, the repertoire of My American Story: North spans an extremely wide range of styles and composers from the United States. What they all share is the personal relationship that Trifonov has with each of them. For a few years now, he’s been touring with a program entitled Decades, composed of a selection of 20th-century pieces from composers including Aaron Copland, John Adams, and John Corigliano, who all appear on the album. However, this first part of his “American“ project ultimately revolves around the piano concerto that he commissioned from Mason Bates: “I had the idea for this project, and Mason Bates had already been wanting to write a concerto for me. I waited a year or two, and as soon as I got the score, I got to work on it. It’s an amazing piece, one of my favorites on the whole album!“

George Gershwin and Mason Bates’ piano concertos frame the album, while also lying at its heart. Although nearly a century separates these two works (1925 to 2022), they display the same unique and captivating synthesis of jazz, film music, and classical elements. Daniil Trifonov was a teenager when he heard George Gershwin’s Concerto in F Major for the first time in Moscow. He immediately vowed to perform this ambitious, yet somehow easygoing piece himself one day. A contemporary of Art Tatum, Gershwin managed to transpose onto his classical compositions the motifs and groove of American jazz, just as Mason Bates marries different styles in a single concerto: “Obviously, these are two very different works. In Bates’ concerto, for example, there are neo-Renaissance elements in the first movement, and the third movement is very cinematic. It feels like watching a black and white movie of a wild goose-chase through the streets of Chicago!“, the pianist enthusiastically describes. “And along with the fact that they were written in the same place, the two concertos both heavily rely on the orchestra. They’re expertly crafted, and demand a great amount of virtuosity from the musicians. Gershwin’s second movement is very difficult to play, and demands first-rate soloists, especially for the big trumpet solo. Generally speaking, for both pieces, the musicians in the orchestra have to be in perfect harmony.“

From Classical to Swing

On this North American album, the names of the great Romantics like Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Schubert and Chopin, are replaced by those of jazz legends like Aaron Copland, Art Tatum and Bill Evans. When you grow up as a pianist engaging in Russian traditions, transposing American music and its techniques, riffs, and swing, it’s no easy task, even for a virtuoso like Trifonov: “It has a lot to do with timing. There’s a sort of phrasing that has a habit of getting away from you. Whereas in classical music, the phrasing often follows the tempo, in this case, the two elements are separate. It’s one of those things that was completely new for me.“ He explains. “I had to constantly be recording myself when I rehearsed, so I could put myself in the listener’s shoes and be able to perceive the music and rhythm in the right way.“

This approach is perfectly illustrated by the opening track of the album, Trifonov’s transcription of Art Tatum’s piece “I Cover the Waterfront,“ done by ear. Upon first listen, the final product sounds like a ‘mere’ improvisation. In reality, the piece demands a tremendous amount of precision thanks to its exacting structure: “For the transcription, I listened to Tatum’s recording slowed down, and something that struck me was how absolutely every little thing is calculated, down to the very end. The right hand plays quickly, in perfectly-placed doubles, in groups of four, while the left always lags a bit behind. It’s very structured, and that’s not by accident, in spite of how much it sounds like improvisation.“

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Daniil Trifonov - My American Story © Dario Acosta

The album also features two other genres that are just as important as jazz in the US: film music and minimalism, which round off Trifonov’s musical story. Daniil Trifonov chose John Adams’ piece “China Gates“, and John Corigliano’s “Fantasia on an Ostinato“ for his album, also making a point of including Thomas Newman and Dave Grusin, “two great composers of film music,“ with piano-centric tracks composed for the cult films ‘The Firm’ and ‘American Beauty’: “Newman draws heavily from minimalism, and Grusin from jazz, so they complement each other really well.“

In the vast musical landscape that the Russian virtuoso has explored since living in the United States, it’s clear that big cities play a major role. Memphis jazz, soundtracks to Chicago gangster films, the classical and cinematic music of both New York and, of course, Cleveland, the place where it all started: “It’s wild to know that the man who was able to take down Al Capone after all those years, was from Cleveland. He was alive at nearly the same time as Art Tatum. And another Cleveland native, composer Henry Mancini, was the one to write The Pink Panther, along with some other great film scores. For me personally, it’s where I met my wife, in Little Italy. That’s why these big cities make up such a large part of my American Story.“

Although the album My American Story: North has only just come out, we can’t help but ask: when will part two, My American Story: South, come out, and what will be on it? “The first part is the result of about four years of work, so I’ll need a little time to prepare the second…“, Daniil Trifonov explains, adding that other classical albums are also in the works.

For those who are wondering why big names like Leonard Bernstein and Philip Glass are missing from this ‘American’ record, Daniil Trifonov’s response is: “This album is my story of the United States, not someone else’s. If you want to listen to Bernstein, there are plenty of recordings to choose from!“