The Yellow Label just released a disk featuring Daniil Trifonov, surely one of the most astounding pianists of our age. Titled “My American Story-North”, Trifonov, a pianist of jaw-dropping technique and outer-wordly interpretive skills, takes us on a highly personal journey through an eclectic American musical landscape. As the pianist explained, “this project has given me access to many perspectives, styles, cultures, places, people, stories, and forms of expression that have shaped and molded my experience of America.”

Daniil Trifonov: “When I Fall in Love” (arr. Bill Evans)

A Highly Personal Reflection

Daniil Trifonov

Born and raised in Nizhny Novgorov, Russia, and musically trained by Tatiana Zelikman at the famed Gnessin School of Music in Moscow, Daniil Trifonov moved to the United States in 2009 to study with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Not unlike a vast number of highly talented artists from the former Eastern Bloc, Trifonov never returned home. My American Story-North embodies his emotional attachment to his adopted home, and it reflects his love for his family and the life he discovered in the United States.

In essence, the disk is a top-10 playlist of compositions that Trifonov associates with the essence of America. As he explained, “These are pieces that I feel personally connected to. Favorites of mine that speak to me on a musical level.” The recording project is framed by two piano concertos, George Gershwin’s 1925 Concerto in F, and the Piano Concerto by Mason Bates, commissioned by Trifonov and premiered with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2022.

Concertos and Films

Prokofiev called the Gershwin concerto “amateurish,” but Trifonov connects to it on a deeply personal level as he first heard the work during his studies in Moscow. He has likened it to a “chase scene through the dark streets of Chicago in a black-and-white movie.” A close connection to cinema—a veritable smorgasbord of disconnect—also drives the concerto by Mason Bates, which Trifonov calls “one of the great concertos of the 21st century.” To be sure, nothing in Trifonov’s playing is amateurish or disconnected, but it is fascinating to see how this formerly humble and shy artist has discovered the American gene for cultural self-promotion.

Before coming to America and the advent of the internet, Trifonov gleaned his first impressions of America via a few Hollywood movies. And these first impressions translated into a true love affair with the film medium once he arrived in America. As such, it’s hardly surprising that his top-10 playlist features soundtracks from the comedy “American Beauty” and an adaptation of John Grisham’s novel “The Firm” with music by Thomas Newman and Dave Grusin, respectively.

Daniil Trifonov Plays Gershwin’s Concerto in F (excerpt)

Jazz and Modernity

Trifonov first experienced jazz during his early days in America, courtesy of keyboard wizard and musical pioneer Art Tatum. Dazzled by Tatum’s inventiveness, improvisational skills, and shimmering virtuosity, Trifonov elegantly puts on Tatum’s mantel in an arrangement of I Cover the Waterfront, adopting embellishments, rhythmic spurts and the characteristic weaving in and out of tempo. According to Trifonov, jazz pianist Bill Evans, and the slow, contemplative and harmonically lush version of When I Fall in Love represents “the best features of this authentically American musical genre.”

While minimalism is represented by John Adams and John Corigliano, and the iconic John Cage 4’33’’ rounds out this collection, my personal highlight of the entire disk is Aaron Copland’s Piano Variations of 1930. Leonard Bernstein called it “a synonym for modern music, so prophetic, harsh and wonderful, and so full of modern feeling and thinking.” Bernstein also used it at parties “to empty the room, guaranteed, in two minutes.” Trifonov’s performance was spellbinding, mingling power with finesse and astonishing speed that still left plenty of room for expression.

Daniil Trifonov is an intense and self-reflective artist who is comfortably settling into maturity. That maturity includes an idealised vision of his adopted country, musically represented in this release, which probably formed during his early days in Russia or soon thereafter. That image is visually represented on the CD cover and the booklet, with the pianist happily strolling through a Pittsburgh iron mill or contemplating the year 2024 in a 1950s-style diner. Above all, this release is a highly personal and emotional showcase of Trifonov’s cultural learning, approaching and digesting the diversity and eclecticism of the American musical landscape.

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