Russian Piano Music for Children

- Many composers have written piano music for children, that is to say music that children can play themselves and music to be played for children. This CD presents music from both categories, witten by four prominent Russian composers, of whom only Samuel Moiseevich Maykapar bas become less well-known in the West, becuuse he worked mostly In Russia as a music pedagogue for children. As a composer, he played a major part in the development of the children and youth repertory and whole generations of Russian pianists have been brought up with his music. Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and of course Tchaikovsky need no further appreciation.

- The title of Maykapar's (in Russia) most famous work for children, "Biriulki" comes from an old, nowadays almost extinct child's play with small wooden miniatures of domestic gear with a deceptive likeness but of course much smaller. This, and all the other music on this lovely CD, is however not a work for children only; adult pianists as well as listeners will also be fascinated by the artistic and pianistic features of these miniatures.

- Mila Baslawskaya herself has played these works from childhood onwards, taught them to children and still performs them in her recitals as do other great Russian pianists (in fact, Shostakovich'  Seven Dolls' Dances is a favourite encore of that other great Russian pianist Elisabeth Leonskaya).

 

Mila Baslawskaya studied with Anna Artobolevskayn at the Central School of Music (a division of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory) in her town of birth, Moscow. She gave her first public recital when she was eight years old and appeared already the next year as soloist with orchestra. In 1970 she graduated 'cum laude' from the Moscow Conservatory where Oleg Boshniakovich had been her principal teacher. In 1963 she first met cellist Dmitry Ferschtman, with whom she has formed a duo ever since and with whom she emigrated to Holland in 1978, from where she pursued her career as recitalist and chamber music player. In 1981 Mila Baslawskaya was appointed a Professor of piano at the Conservatory of Rotterdam.