Daniil Trifonov explores intimate side of Tchaikovsky on new DG double album, out Oct 3
(September 2025) — With his all-Liszt two-disc set, Transcendental, Daniil Trifonov won the 2018 Grammy Award for “Best Instrumental Solo Album.” Now the Russian pianist devotes another double album to a great Romantic composer, with the release by Deutsche Grammophon of Tchaikovsky on October 3. The new set captures Trifonov’s interpretations of his compatriot’s rarely performed early Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor, his Children’s Album, and the “Thème original et variations” from his Six Piano Pieces, together with the Concert Suite from his ballet The Sleeping Beauty, as transcribed for piano by a young Mikhail Pletnev. Already available for pre-order, the new recording will be available on CD and vinyl, as well as for streaming and digital downloads.
Three advance tracks – “Sweet Dreams” from the Children’s Album and both the Andante and “Silver Fairy” from The Sleeping Beauty suite – are already available for streaming and downloads. The two Sleeping Beauty tracks are accompanied by e-videos from a performance filmed last season at Barcelona’s historic Palau de la Música Catalana. The full recital, in which the Tchaikovsky Sonata and Sleeping Beauty suite frame works by Chopin and Barber, is available to stream on STAGE+.
See Trifonov play the Andante from The Sleeping Beauty suite.
Weaving together themes of family, childhood, and maternal love, the new collection reveals a side of Tchaikovsky that is often overlooked. Trifonov explains: “We think of him as an archetypical Romantic. But, particularly in his younger years, Tchaikovsky found joy in his close relationships and emotional comfort in his family.”
Tchaikovsky composed 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, full of touches of genius and changing moods.
The pianist discovered the Thème original et variations through a recording made during the inaugural 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition by its eventual winner, the 23-year-old Van Cliburn. Originally conceived as a finale to the Six Piano Pieces of 1873, the theme and variations nevertheless form a satisfying whole, offering moments of playfulness, brilliance, and grace.
Schumann was unquestionably the inspiration for Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album of 1878, written to emulate the older composer’s collections for young pianists. There is darkness as well as light in the 24-piece set, perhaps reflecting the fact that Tchaikovsky’s happy childhood had ended abruptly with the death of his mother when he was just 14. Together with the Sonata and Thème original et variations, the set offers a glimpse of what Trifonov sees as a “private dimension to Tchaikovsky – a spirit conditioned by memories of youth and family.”
The collection concludes with the suite from The Sleeping Beauty, realized in 1978 by the then- 21-year-old pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev. That same year, Pletnev – like Van Cliburn before him and Trifonov 33 years later – won the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Admiring the skill with which Pletnev weaves together music from different parts of the ballet score, Trifonov considers the suite “a masterful piano work in its own right.”
Learn more about Trifonov from Deutsche Grammophon here and pre-order Tchaikovsky directly from the label here.
Tchaikovsky
Daniil Trifonov, piano
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Release date: October 3, 2025
Formats: 2CDs, 2LPs, streaming, and digital downloads
Disc 1:
TCHAIKOVSKY: “Thème original et variations” from Six Piano Pieces
TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor
Disc 2:
TCHAIKOVSKY: Children’s Album
TCHAIKOVSKY / transcr. Mikhail PLETNEV: Concert Suite from The Sleeping Beauty